Utah Department of Transportation recycles concrete on Bangerter Highway

The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) has recycled approximately 15,000 cubic yards of concrete on site on Bangerter Highway, which runs west and then north from Draper, Utah, through western Salt Lake County to Salt Lake City.

Crews have been working for five months to recycle material at the Bangerter 4700 South project, the department reports.

UDOT says it opted to recycle the material on site instead of hauling it to another location to reduce the number of truck trips in the area.

“In the past all of this concrete would have gone to waste and now is being recycled and reused for UDOT projects,” UDOT Region 2 Director Robert Stewart says. “This pavement has been here for 30 years, and it’s great to be able to give it new life.” 

Crews used heavy machinery to break up old sections of the highway before placing material into an onsite crushing machine. The crusher has a magnet inside to separate concrete from metal rebar, which is also recycled.

Once the large cement chunks were crushed into tiny pieces, UDOT started reprocessing it into a road base for the new interchange.  

“We are taking the old Bangerter Highway, crushing it up and making it into a product to put into the new Bangerter Highway,” says Jake Nielson, contractor project manager on the Bangerter 4700 South project. “What most people don’t know is that most of the materials in our highways are 100 percent recyclable, whether that’s concrete or asphalt.” 

For more than a decade, UDOT has been working to eliminate stoplights on Bangerter Highway by converting intersections into interchanges. This year, UDOT is building interchanges at 13400 South, 9800 South, 4700 South and 2700 West.   

Bangerter Highway is one of the Salt Lake Valley’s largest north-to-south corridors, moving an average of 60,000 vehicles per day.