Stradacon Penna uses McLanahan’s Modular Wash Plant and Scrubbing System to help Recycle C&D Waste for reuse.

Stradacon Penna is a quarry operation located in Townsville, Queensland, Australia, that specializes in the production of high-quality road base and embankment materials, aggregate, recycled concrete products, and specialty sands for the civil construction industry, sporting fields and bio-retention basins. With owners David and Vivienne Penna at the helm and their children Natalie and Jarl involved in the day-to-day operations, Stradacon Penna is a true family-orientated business.

CHALLENGE

David Penna prides his quarry on being a clean, healthy environment. He has carefully and thoughtfully planned his site with sustainability in mind, and the citrus and other tropical fruit-bearing trees that line the entrance to his quarry are a testament to his efforts.

Part of Penna’s vision for a clean, healthy environment involves minimizing dust generation on site.

“We’re very keen to get dust out of our lives, to get dust off our site,” said Penna. “It causes mechanical issues; it causes health issues, and it causes productivity issues.”

To reduce the dust generated by dry screening their crushed aggregates, Penna reached out to Lincom, McLanahan’s dealer for aggregate wet processing equipment in Australia, about adding a wash plant for size classification.

SOLUTION

Lincom recommended McLanahan’s UltraWASH Modular Wash Plant, which can produce up to three clean aggregate products and up to two washed sand products.

Penna said he was impressed with the strength of the design of the McLanahan UltraWASH as well as McLanahan’s history and family values. The modularity of the plant, combined with Penna’s meticulous planning ahead of the plant’s arrival, allowed for a quick and easy setup on site.

Another part of Penna’s larger vision of sustainability involves recycling construction and demolition waste materials for reuse as construction aggregates.

“Dilution is the solution to pollution,” Penna said, citing a well-known adage about the process of adding water to decrease the concentration of a contaminant.

He added a McLanahan modular scrubbing system consisting primarily of a McLanahan Coarse Material Screw Washer to his new wash plant. The Coarse Material Screw Washer accepts the C&D waste after it has been crushed and removes the lightweight debris and organic material from the aggregate before it is processed in the UltraWASH.

RESULTS

With the McLanahan modular scrubbing system, Stradacon Penna is reducing the amount of soft plastics, timbers and papers that come in with the crushed C&D waste feed. Penna said about 99.9% of the rubbish is removed and sent to the local tip. The aggregate product is then dewatered with a McLanahan Dewatering Screen and presented to the McLanahan UltraWASH Modular Wash Plant to be added in with the naturally produced aggregates.

“It’s been a real game-changer for us,” Penna said. “We are now producing aggregates and sands that are 10% derived from recycled concrete from demolition waste. We are cleaning it up, presenting it with new fresh material, giving it a spruce up, putting it back on the ground and you just cannot tell. Rather than crushing all that demolition waste up, sending it back to industry, we are tidying it up and presenting it back to industry in an almost new state.”

Penna said customers from all over the region bring their C&D waste to his quarry because it is a one-stop shop for recycling material and purchasing new. The customers haul in C&D waste and haul out a clean, recycled aggregate product that can be reused for construction purposes.

“Most people know who we are, they know how we’re going about it, and they want to be a part of it,” shared Penna. “I have been in discussions with a lot of customers, and they all agree that it is a very responsible thing to do — bring us concrete waste, we clean it up and send it back to industry. We do not send it back to industry unless it is cleaned up.”

With the addition of the UltraWASH, Penna said they can increase their product lines and branch into some specialty sands — “all of these products that are very difficult to make, but we can make through our wash plant.”

“We’re very happy with the products coming out of the wash plant, and a key feature is the flexibility of the plant,” Penna said, referring to his ability to adjust material flows and split products with the UltraWASH’s flexible design. “We’re absolutely ecstatic with it.”

The UltraWASH also gives Penna the ability to make these specification products without generating dust.

Penna is pleased with the outcome of his McLanahan Wash Plant and modular scrubbing system.

“The whole operation, the scrubber system coupled with the wash plant, enables us to treat this demolition waste and send it back into industry like an as-new state,” Penna explained. “It also enables us to operate dust-free. There is not a lot of dust. There are fruit trees growing there because they can.

“It adds to the well-being of us all as people here. It is healthy. It is clean. It is also environmentally sustainable because we are not putting rubbish back out into the industry, we are not belching dust out into the air, and it makes for a great work environment, it really does.”

With the McLanahan UltraWASH Modular Wash Plant and modular scrubbing system, Penna is meeting his goals of providing his customers with high-quality aggregate products while creating a safer working environment for his team.