When land developer Anderson Geneva purchased the site of the former Geneva Steel plant west of Orem in Utah County, it knew one of its biggest challenges would be what to do with 750,000 cubic yards — nearly 1.5 million tons — of concrete it had to remove from the redevelopment project. The company bought the site and in the rehabilitation process has become one of the biggest concrete recyclers in the West.{mprestriction ids="1,3"}
To date, Anderson Geneva has removed nearly 200,000 cubic yards of concrete from the site. The cleaned-up acreage now has space for homes, shops, restaurants and offices in the 1,700-acre @geneva master-planned community in the fast-growing town of Vineyard.
While it has proven challenging to dig up and crush tons of old concrete, it was even more challenging to figure out how to dispose of it, said Stewart Park, project manager for @geneva.
“After a lot of research and an exhaustive bidding process, we were able to process much of the crushed concrete for re-use,” said Park. “Some of the uses of the material include road base, back fill and engineered fill for major buildings and other construction projects in Utah Valley, including those by BYU, the LDS church, UTA, Lehi High School and Mountain View High School. Our favorite project in which our processed concrete was recycled is Orem City’s All Together playground, which focuses on benefitting children with disabilities.”
Anderson Geneva and its concrete-crushing operation will continue to recycle old concrete for the next three years or so — about the amount of time it will take to dig up the remaining 550,000 cubic yards found mainly in the industrial-zoned northwest quadrant of the development.
Concrete is not the only material for which Anderson Geneva has been able to find a second home. The developer has also recycled many of the remnants of the former steel mill, including over 4 million tons of steel-making byproduct slag that was processed and used for much of the base for the I-15 CORE project. Geneva slag was also used for road base and embankments for the Orem 800 North extension, dubbed the Vineyard Connector, which will connect residents from northern Utah County to Vineyard. Slag continues to be mined and processed from the site, with thousands of cubic yards being moved and used for various road and infrastructure projects along the Wasatch Front.{/mprestriction}
