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Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Aggregates, Asphalt and IBAA

Asphalt and Aggregate Open Days held at Brett Aggregates Ridham site in July proved a great success with the company’s customers in the South East, providing an opportunity to see a busy asphalt plant in action, to learn more about how recycled material, including Incinerator Bottom Ash Aggregate (IBAA), can be used, and to gain an understanding of the complex technical processes that ensure compliance and quality across the product range.

‘Licence to ……  Recycle Waste Materials’

Site licensing for the recycling of waste material as aggregate is a complex business as Brett Aggregates Recycling Field Sales Manager, Keith Osborne explained. Ridham is licensed to accept inert waste and, since it is not a landfill site, all material brought into the site must be processed and sent out as usable aggregate. The types of material that can be accepted are limited to European Waste Codes (EWCs) specifically listed in the permit and must be processed in accordance with a quality protocol issued by the Environment Agency (EA) and WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme).

Asphalt – but not as you know it!

Juliet Sargant, Asphalt General Manager at Brett Aggregates outlined the wide range of asphalt products that can now be produced by Brett Aggregates at Ridham and Whitstable. Among the new products mentioned was an asphalt mix including synthetic fibres as reinforcement, which can be used to reduce thermal, reflective and fatigue cracking as well as rutting in asphalt surfaces laid in situations prone to stability-related problems.

Into the Future with Incinerator Bottom Ash Aggregate (IBAA)

Brett Aggregates’ partner, Fortis talked through the Future of Incinerator Bottom Ash Aggregate (IBAA) – a recycled material that can be used instead of Type 1 in some applications. Fortis has been supplying IBAA to Brett Aggregates’ Hithermoor site for use on the M4 Smart Motorway project, and the two companies are working together to offer the product to customers in Kent and the South East.

Commercial Manager for Fortis, Sarah Powell  described how IBAA  – the residual product from the incineration of non-recyclable domestic waste – can be mixed with limestone to produce an aggregate, IBAA that offers a cost-effective and sustainable alternative to traditional construction materials.

The environmental benefits of using IBAA to replace primary aggregates are clear – it reduces demand on our natural resources; the incineration process that creates it generates electricity for the community; and its use as a construction material diverts at least 95% of residual municipal waste from landfill.

And now for the science….

Visits to the technical laboratory at Ridham were particularly popular where our attendees were able to see the stringent grading tests carried out on asphalt samples and to try their hand at a bitumen penetration test and a sand patch macro test which is a method used for measuring asphalt surface texture in terms of how it drains in wet weather. 

With our thanks to …..

Attendees from Kent County Council’s Highways Development Agreement Project Managers, who joined us on Day 1.

And to our Day 2 visitors who were Type 1 and asphalt Brett customers in the South East.

Robert Colley, Development Agreements Project Manager at KCC said: “The Asphalt and Aggregate Open Day at Ridham was most informative and interesting. It offered a good opportunity for members of the KCC Highways team to see an operational plant and the work that goes on in the technical lab. Even those of us who have been in this industry for many years have learnt something new today.”