Salzburg Airport runway recycled

Demolition and earth moving company Weickl Erdbau has crushed and recycled 8,500 t of a runway at Salzburg Airport in Austria.

The runway, which has been in near continuous operation since it was built almost 60 years ago, was closed for five weeks while refurbishment works took place.

Klaus Weickl, managing director of Weickl Erdbau, said: “This job was a challenge due to its tight time schedule. We only had four weeks to complete all the work.”

The company rented a Rubble Master compact RM 100GO! crusher to work directly on-site. Material from the 2.75 km (1.7 mile) runway was turned into a recyclable final aggregate that was then used for the sub-structure of the new runway.

Klaus said: “The recycling of construction and demolition waste creates a loop in which transport and material costs are saved and environmental impact is reduced.”

Salzburg Airport said recycling and using the concrete layers from the old runway on site saved about 4,000 truckloads of demolition materials from having to be transported off-site.