- Rinker employees give to Tsunami victims.
- Outdoor classes at the 474 sand mine.
- Rinker Materials wins International Habitat Conservation Award.
Waste not, want not
“Waste not, want not” - we all know the phrase, but what about putting it into practice? Rinker Materials’ Florida Materials Division and Quarries East Division in the Miami region are putting this expression into action by working on an operational improvement program for recycling waste concrete.
Typically, when concrete truck drivers return to a plant with waste concrete, they deposit it into an onsite washout pit. As the pit fills, a loader operator empties it by making piles of concrete to be hauled off by an outside vendor when it’s dry. Once offsite, the concrete is normally put through a crusher and resold at a profit by the hauler. This translates into hauling costs for the Miami region of around US$400,000 a year. The new program stands to save this cost by using trucks from Rinker Materials’ Transport Division.
Rather than use a third party hauler, transport trucks that are already making aggregate deliveries and would normally leave empty, now back-haul the waste to one of the nearby Rinker Materials quarries where it is crushed into “shot rock.” This is then stockpiled at the quarry and resold as road and general fill.
The new recycling program eliminates hauling costs and creates sales. No additional labour is required and transport drivers still return to the quarry in time to deliver another load. Currently, the program is being piloted in Miami with hopes of adopting it in other regions.
Prestress and PolyPipe sales will enhance Rinker’s performance
Rinker Materials recently sold its prestress and PolyPipe businesses to Coreslab Structures and the Halifax Group respectively.
Coreslab Structures is a major Canadian based prestress/precast concrete manufacturer with 12 plants across the US and Canada and sales of over US$200 million.
The Halifax Group is a US private equity investment firm which partners with proven management teams to invest in management buyouts, recapitalisations, growth capital infusions and industry consolidations.
The new owners of each division have offered employment to all current employees.
Both Prestress and PolyPipe had been regarded as “non-core” operations for some time. Rinker’s chief executive David Clarke says the divestment of these operations is in line with our strategy to focus on the performance and growth of our integrated heavy building materials operations.
