Concrete to Pour from California Job

The decision to close down a former U.S. Navy air base in southern California could bring up to three million tons of recycled concrete to the market.

Officials from the city of Irvine, Calif., have been consulting with concrete recyclers in the area to examine the feasibility of locating a recycling facility at the site of the former El Toro air base. The base, which once served U.S. Navy planes and pilots, contains several runways and taxiways made with thick, reinforced concrete.

According to the Orange County Register, Irvine city planner Dan Jung supports the recycling approach, which will open the land up for multiple uses, including a new city park.

The location of the El Toro base in the Los Angeles-Orange County metropolitan area should mean there will be plenty of end markets for the crushed concrete produced, in both road building and commercial and residential development projects.

“Since Orange County does a lot of aggregates recycling, there is certainly a market for the material,” says Dan Copp of Dan Copp Crushing, Anaheim, Calif. When the project kicks in, however, it could drive prices down for the specification materials produced. “With that kind of quantity, you’re definitely going to flood the market and bring the price down,” Copp comments.

Should the city of Irvine and the U.S. Navy reach an agreement to demolish the airfield and recycle the runways, Copp says he will be among the interested bidders. “I’ll bid along with every other recycler in the lower 48,” he quips.

Copp also notes that there is likely to be an environmental abatement aspect to the project, due to materials found in the buildings to be toward down and the likely presence of jet fuel residue in and near the runway areas.

A similar airport project is in progress at the former Stapleton Airport in Denver, where Recycled Materials Corp., Arvada, Colo., is the lead recycling contractor in the crushing efforts taking place. That massive runway demolition and recycling effort may last as long as 10 years.