De Brabandere concrete plant

WALL-E, a giant ecological wall in concrete based on recycled sand

Sand is indispensable for making ready-mixed concrete. However, it is a finite natural resource. It is therefore irresponsible to continue dredging rivers and seabeds in order to process the high-quality sand into concrete. Especially if you know that in Flanders there is an enormous amount of recycled sand available. This recycled sand comes from high quality concrete and is definitely not given the value it deserves. Betoncentrale De Brabandere is determined to turn that tide.

Wherever concrete structures are demolished, high-quality concrete sand is released that can be reused in concrete. However, it is never used to make structural BENOR concrete. The BENOR label indicates that the concrete meets the European quality standards. Indeed, without this label, structural concrete, which requires a high load-bearing capacity and compression, has no chance on the Belgian market.
WALL-E aims to remove the last barriers to the reuse of high quality recycled concrete sand in BENOR concrete.

Several small-scale projects already showed that concrete sand can take an important place in circular construction. But in order to remove all barriers completely, it must be possible to experiment on a larger scale and to follow up the realizations for a long time.
Therefore, De Brabandere will erect immense retaining walls (5m high, 300m long) on its site in Veurne. They will be built with structural concrete based on recycled sands of different origins. Independent control and certification bodies will follow the project very closely and carry out various tests.

With this large-scale experiment, De Brabandere and his partners are not only striving to remove the last technical barriers concerning the use of recycled sand in structural concrete, but they also want to set up a suitable framework of standards so that the administrative, legal and financial bottlenecks disappear. If WALL-E succeeds in this, no more expensive sand needs to be used in BENOR concrete and the spark between the recycling sector and the concrete industry can really spread!