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TAYLORSVILLE — What is old is new again for Utah Department of Transportation, which is recycling old concrete from Bangerter Highway to help pave new highway interchanges.
It's all about working smarter, not harder, as UDOT decided to recycle material on site rather than haul the material off to another area. This helps save on the total number of trips trucks need to take.
For more than a decade, UDOT has been working to get rid of stoplights on Bangerter Highway by converting intersections into interchanges.
This year UDOT expects to build interchanges at 13400 South, 9800 South, 4700 South and 2700 West. For the past five months, crews have been working every day on the recycling process.
"We have the heavy equipment out on site. We'll break down the concrete initially, and then we'll put it in a crusher that's out there," UDOT spokesman John Gleason said.
From there, once the large cement chunks have been crushed into tiny pieces, UDOT then reprocesses it into a road base used for the new interchange.
"Right now, we see about 60,000 vehicles everyday on Bangerter, and that number is going to continue to grow," Gleason said.
He said if it were not being recycled, this material would be going to the landfills. Gleason said UDOT expects the project to be wrapping up by the end of next year.
