SALT LAKE CITY — Everything old is new again, at least on one of the major highways in northern Utah.
As part of the years-long project to make Bangerter Highway an actual highway by converting intersections to interchanges, crews are using parts of the old road to make the new road.
Video below shows crews tearing up old Bangerter Highway and recycling the material:
Instead of wasting time and fuel by hauling material ripped up during the project to another location, the Utah Department of Transportation chose to keep 15,000 cubic yards of concrete on site and recycle it there, enabling it to be reused on the same project.
The concrete was broken up by heavy machinery at 4700 South and crushed into tiny pieces, creating enough recyclable material to fill two Goodyear blimps, according to UDOT.
Instead of being hauled away, the old concrete was recycled where it was originally located, and then reprocessed as road base for the new interchange.
“We are taking the old Bangerter Highway, crushing it up and making it into a product to put into the new Bangerter Highway,” said contractor project manager Jake Nielson. “What most people don’t know is that most of the materials in our highways are 100% recyclable, whether that’s concrete or asphalt.”
The Bangerter project has been underway for more than a decade, with crews building interchanges this year at 13400 South 9800 South, 4700 South and 2700 West.
