Waste dust from asphalt finds a home in cement

The production of asphalt for road surfacing generates a fine dust which cannot always be included in the finished product and has to be sent to landfill.

However, the material can be blended into the raw feed used in the cement-making process, which creates an opportunity to make use of the waste from asphalt plants which are near to a cement works.

In 2017 over 3,000 tonnes of limestone fines from Wigan asphalt plant was transported to Ribblesdale cement works in Clitheroe for use as a raw material for the production of clinker.

This avoided the waste being landfilled. And by replacing the same tonnage of limestone which would have been quarried, it also created savings on energy consumption which outweighed the transport costs.