How to recover and reuse most of the soil on different construction sites
Published 12/9 at 14:38The world could run out of topsoil in about 60 years if it is used at the current rate. In the European Parliament, the first steps for preservation have been taken with the approval of the Nature Restoration Law (NRL), a regulation that provides for the restoration of at least 30% of natural habitats, and the increase of urban green spaces by 2030. Removing topsoil to allow for infrastructure construction is standard practice.
Excavated earth is usually classified as waste, but it ceases to be waste if it is fully recovered. Recycling and reusing the soil becomes essential both to save the money of disposal, and a possible repurchase of new material as well as avoiding contaminating the soil with materials from other areas. MB Crusher states that with its equipment installed on heavy machinery already present on site, material management becomes easier and more sustainable, economically and in terms of time. The company highlights how its equipment has been used to process soil in a variety of applications.
Invasive weeds leave Versailles
At the western end of the Château de Versailles, France, right on the edge of the Gally Gardens, a 10t Mecalac excavator has been at work in the materials storage depot with an MB-S10 screening bucket installed at the end of its boom. “We needed to sift the excavated material to gather soil and compost to arrange the flower beds and lawns of the gardens,” says Joël Fauvel, deputy director of the Department of Gardens of Trianon and Marly. “Before, our gardeners had to manually load the excavated soil on a mechanical sieve mounted on a frame. Now with the MB crusher screening bucket, separating the materials is much easier and faster. The most important thing is that the soil processed with the MB screener has a better quality as it contains fewer weed roots and purity is essential to be able to reuse it. Now the soil that returns to the ground is much cleaner.”
Going back to where you came from
There are as many as 15k of excavations to be filled during the installation of aqueducts and sewage networks in the small Peruvian community of El Porvenir. Bedding with the same excavated material is a gain for the construction site and above all, for the environment, but is a difficult task during the rainy season as the excavated material is wet. The problem was solved by installing an MB Crusher MB-HDS212 padding bucket on the Bobcat mini excavator already on site. This meant that there was no need to buy filling materials, no truck trips to and from the construction site, and the extracted soil returns, clean, to its original location.
Everything is locally sourced
During excavation work in Germany, soil is often mixed with branches, stones, roots and other contaminating materials. MB states that using its MB-HDS padding bucket has meant that there is no need to send material to landfill, as it can easily and quickly separate impurities from the earth and then reuse the soil. The MB-HDS207 sorting bucket screened the material and separated the soil from the stones and roots.
MB states that the environment is something that works like an organism, with a single local intervention having consequences for the entire system. If this balance is broken, the entire system risks being destroyed.
The company adds that by treating excavated earth using MB Crusher equipment to obtain clean soil, things can be improved, all using the heavy machines already at the site.