We have detected that you are visiting from United States.

Please click here if you would prefer to visit our United States website.

Visit us at NCE Tunnelling Conference | 5th December 2024 | Hilton Bankside, London

Image
icon Technical Library icon Request Brochure Archive-Books

0

 Archive-Books My Quote

0
☰ Menu
Archive-Books

0
X

My Quote

X

No products in the Quote.

Q&A: Sustainable Dust, Water & Waste Management

2nd, April 2025

Back to articles

Sustainable construction practices are more important than ever, and Conquip is at the forefront of innovation in dust, water, and waste management. In this Q&A, we speak with Andy Greener, Technical Support & Product Development Manager, to explore how our equipment helps contractors minimise environmental impact, improve efficiency, and improve sustainability goals on-site.

Introduction

Ever feel like your site could run smoother? With tight deadlines and complex tasks, every moment matters. We spoke to Andy Greener, to give you insider tips that can improve your site’s efficiency. Here’s what he had to say.

Q: Tell us about how Conquip has designed many of its equipment items to help contractors reduce waste, water and dust on-site?

Reducing one or more of these factors on-site – by using less plant machinery, vehicles or increasing efficiency – all help improve project sustainability.

Our range contains over 130 items – and 12 have been specifically designed, engineered and manufactured to have specific sustainability benefits.

Q: Can you explain how the Concrete Washout System works?

The Concrete Washout System manages and reuses concrete wastewater from concrete trucks, skips and pumps, incorporating the capture and treatment of concrete water, and the ongoing recycling of that water to produce further concrete. It actively reduces water waste and the potential for alkaline pollution onto the ground on-site.

There’s a potential to reuse around 90% of water waste from cleaning concrete equipment.

Q: Are there other ways to make concrete practices more sustainable?

One is our Concrete Blowout Attachment that can be fitted to concrete skips and waste skips. It minimises and reuses concrete waste material and prevents environmental contamination from excess concrete left in the lines after use.

An example 25-week concrete pour: 2m3 left in a concrete pump line.  5 pours a week.

48,000 m3 of concrete wasted over a 25-week pour. 0.147 x 48,000 = 7056KG CO2

With the Concrete Blowout Attachment, there is the Potential to save embodied carbon – kg CO2e / kg concrete – 0.147.

Q: What are common mistakes contractors make that cost time?

A common mistake is overcomplicating processes or using the wrong equipment for the job. For instance, sites often struggle with brick deliveries because they lack sufficient pallets at the delivery point. This leads to double handling of bricks which can result in a huge amount of damage and waste. A simple solution? Having more pallets onsite for deliveries! Or using tools like the Conquip Block Grab to move bricks safely and efficiently. An easy fix to save your budget and manual handling time.

Q: When it comes to handling and reducing waste, what are the options?

We have a few…

• One is the BulkX, it reduces double-handling of spoil by discharging direct-to-truck, as well as reducing machinery hours and volume of trucks on the roads, as only full trucks leave sites. This drop-bottom skip can handle volumes from 4,000L to 16,000L!

• Then there’s the Excavator Drag Skip. This simple innovation cuts down on wastage of materials and increases efficiency of trench excavation and backfilling. It reduces material wastage, specifically shingle used in drainage and reduces site deliveries and machinery needed on site, as well as CO2 emissions.

On an example project for drainage backfill of 100 residential houses. Using 800 tonnes of shingle = 50 x 16t trucks full of material. You could save up to 10% / 80 tonnes / 5 truckloads of loose materials usually wasted and reduce excavator fuel and CO2 emissions.

• We also have a bestselling Autolock Tipping Skip, which is a Forklift attachment skip that promotes waste segregation, ensuring efficient recycling and reduced landfill and incineration waste.

It can be supplied in the Institute of Civil Engineers standard colours for easier and compliant waste management.

Q: What about dust, as it’s a year-round challenge on-site?

Yes… a Forklift Powerbrush Sweeper is brilliant. It helps ensure cleaner sites, reduces water usage, and cuts down on machinery emissions.

It’s a pressurised spray system that suppresses and cuts dust pollution, reduces fuel emissions and improves road safety by not using a dedicated road sweeper.

That covers the roads into and out of the site. With site operatives, a Boot Wash is a fully bunded sump that prevents cross-contamination between site areas and contains contaminated waste.

A tap on the outlet means that waste can be contained and pumped.

Want to learn more about our products that supports Dust, Water & Waste Sustainable Management, get in touch…