IIT-M students’ idea to manage concrete waste bags top award

The recycling method, that bagged a top award in UK-India Social Innovation Challenge 2019, is expected to solve the problem of managing concrete waste as well as provide an alternative to virgin aggregate and river sand.

“Our vision is to develop a novel sustainable technology for closed-loop recycling of concrete waste to produce good quality recycled products using solar energy,” said Rohit Prajapati, PhD student from civil engineering department, who was a part of the winning team. 

He explained that this project, a waste concrete recycling technology was developed through optimised heat treatment. “The properties of recycled products produced were found to be comparable to virgin materials available in the market. Optimisation of heating process using concentrated solar power (CSP) technology is under development”.

Stating that generally, concrete recycling plants possess high water foot print whereas recycling technology eliminates the use of water making it more environment friendly, he said the recycled products produced could be cheaper with the help of a closed loop supply chain and an efficient management plan. 

“This project will also have a high social impact in terms of promotion of the non-renewable solar energy, waste reduction and disposal,” he said. He further added that the recycling method will reduce air pollution, saving spaces in landfill sites, prevention of municipal waste and ground water contamination, keeping society clean, eliminate illegal dumping and less mining of natural raw materials.