Every aggregate operation uses conveyor belts. And every belt has only so much life in it. Historically, once a belt is deemed done, it’ll find its way to a scrap pile somewhere on the site. Eventually, a collection of belts might be landfilled. But until that time arrives, belts live on as waste – and as eyesores – at active operations.
“It’s always been you take the old belt off, you put the new one on and the old belt goes in the backyard,” says Greg Failes of Indiana-based US Aggregates. “That accumulates, and then you have a bunch of conveyor belt taking up room and making a mess on your property.”
In recent years, though, some producers are productively offloading their scrap belts differently: They’re recycling them. “With the world going in a green direction, we want to recycle all of the different products that we use,” Failes says. “We want to be responsible with how we dispose of belts rather than send them to a landfill. That’s kind of the big driving force behind it.” Producers like US Aggregates have long recycled scrap materials.