Power Plant Using Ash for Concrete Mix

AmerenUE's Labadie Power Plant has opened a concrete packaging facility that will recycle more than 60,000 tons of fly and bottom ash annually into two million bags of concrete mix.

The project results from a partnership between AmerenUE, Charah, Inc. and The Home Depot. The concrete mix will be prepared and packaged at the facility in fully recyclable plastic bags from Charah. The product will be distributed to Home Depot stores in the St. Louis area.

The 60,000 tons of ash being recycled for concrete mix represents about half of Labadie's annual production of bottom ash. AmerenUE hopes to recycle all of Labadie's bottom ash.

In addition to the ash being used to make concrete mix, more than a year's worth of Labadie's bottom ash -- 200,000 tons -- was used as structural fill for the plant. Charah, an ash management firm, has a similar facility in Virginia, but this is the first to operate in the United States on power plant property, closest to the source of the ash.

Charah, Inc. annually processes 250,000 tons of bottom ash and markets it to the concrete block and concrete mix industries in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia.