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The circular
building economy
Alan Langlois of AAL Recycling talked to Alasdair Crosby about how, with the aid of a new giant aggregate washing plant, building waste can be recycled – 100 percent
I
t is a bizarre, almost prehistoric landscape. There are bare mountains of sand and rubble. Machinery and dump trucks manoeuvre through the landscape like dinosaurs, some of them with long necks are nibbling at the tops of the mountains. There is a constant rumbling and grinding noise – perhaps an earthquake is coming? Where are we? Welcome to Langlois Land! Not a blade of grass anywhere, yet one of Jersey’s greenest workplaces. But yes, there is indeed an earthquake coming – an environmental earthquake that will see extraction and landfill replaced by reuse and recycling. So, welcome also to the circular economy at work.
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Actually, the geographical location of this landscape is at the far extremity of La Collette reclamation area, at the AAL Recycling work site. If it hadn’t been for landfilling over the past few decades, we would be some way offshore at this location. Alan Langlois, the owner of AAL Recycling, said: ‘Stopping landfill is essential, as we cannot continue indefinitely extending the Island’s coastline outwards. ‘Rubble from demolished buildings, from excavations and construction projects comes to us. We crush, clean and grade the material to enable reuse by the Island’s construction industry as aggregate, sand or soil without the necessity of having to import sand or extend quarries.
‘We want our operation to be as environmentally friendly as possible. The water used in the wash plant is recycled in the process; the power needed to run the plant is derived from the Energy Recovery Facility and even the excavator feeding the machine utilises biodiesel as its fuel. ‘Everything which passes into the wash plant is recycled and all the products that would otherwise have ended up as landfill can be recycled and reused locally. ‘Recycling material on a large scale protects the locally mined quarried aggregates and sand, which both extends the life of the quarries and also reduces the need for importation.’
