Concrete pipe and precast structures play a significant role in helping infrastructure projects achieve sustainability goals. As environmentally-friendly products become increasingly important to specifiers and their communities, concrete construction emerges as an unmatched solution.
Responsible Production
Concrete is manufactured using cement, water, and aggregates. At the end of its service life, it can be crushed and used for a variety of applications or recycled into new concrete products.
Additionally, County Materials sources aggregates from local quarries, minimizing the fossil fuels consumed during transportation. We are constantly investing in new technology and incorporating the latest best practices to reduce our energy consumption, use of raw materials, and our emissions, such as substituting fly ash and recycled concrete for raw aggregate to reduce our cement usage.
Generations of Service
A well-known benefit of concrete is its unrivaled longevity. Concrete pipe and precast structures can remain in serviceable condition for up to 100 years, reducing financial and logistical burdens for communities.
Not only does concrete provide a long service life for original applications; it also proves ideal for repurposing. The American Concrete Pipe Association explains that project leaders often overlook concrete’s remarkable salvage value, which is defined as a product’s “inherent strength and ability to survive the abuse of installation and removal.”
The high salvage value of concrete pipe makes it ideal for integration with future infrastructure expansions or alterations. For example, Calumet County reused an 86-year-old reinforced concrete pipe in their Wisconsin Highway Project. The county planned to raise the Highway 114 culvert grade prior to repaving and was pleased to learn the existing concrete pipe had maintained its structural integrity and could be reinstalled to serve the community for future generations.
County Materials is committed to manufacturing sustainable concrete construction products for long-lasting applications. Use our concrete pipe and precast products for your next project by contacting us at (800) 242-7733.
