Orangeburg recycling firm addresses S.C. infrastructure needs

Sunshine Recycling is working directly with heavy highway contractors using recycled crushed aggregate (RCA) from the local recycling company.

Bridge material that is being demolished is brought to Sunshine’s aggregate yard at 507 Cannon Bridge Road to be processed and recycled into South Carolina Department of Transportation-approved road base material.

“(Owner) Joe (Rich) saw the growth potential in new construction and infrastructure in S.C. over a decade ago,” said Jim Pratt of Sunshine Recycling’s Business Development Department. “Sunshine contacted heavy highway/bridge contractors and showed them how they could save money and time by removing the old bridge via trucking with flatbed and dump trailers. Sunshine has assisted at least a dozen contractors over the past decade by removing construction and debris (C&D) bridge material.”

Current projects include:

• Charlotte, North Carolina-based Crowder Construction is replacing the bridge on U.S. 301 near the Four Holes Swamp.
• Charlotte, North Carolina-based Zachry Construction is replacing the bridge on S.C. 34 in Newberry County and the bridge on U.S. 378 in Richland County.
• Columbia-based Republic Contracting is replacing a bridge on Main Street in Darlington.
• Jacksonville, Florida-based Superior Construction is replacing the bridge on Interstate 20 over the Savannah River in both South Carolina and Georgia.

Sunshine has its own concrete crusher, material screener and telestack in an effort to meet the road base material needs for both county and city governments.

Pratt said the concrete (RCA) also meets the demand from small business and homeowners that want an economical way to repair/build roads, parking lots and driveways.

Sunshine’s aggregate service offers a broad selection of recycled concrete, asphalt and brick.

The company has the ability to recycle crushed rock, including granite and cement.

Recycled aggregates are used in:

• Ready mix and precast concrete
• Road construction and surfacing
• Rail track ballast
• Water filtration
• Pipe bedding

Products include:

• Crushed materials
• Dusts
• Face materials
• Fill materials
• Single-size and graded materials
• Sub-bases

Concrete recycling has become an increasingly popular way to utilize aggregate left behind when structures or roadways are demolished, Pratt said.

In the past, this rubble was disposed of in landfills, but with more attention being paid to environmental concerns, concrete recycling allows reuse of the rubble while also keeping construction costs down.

The recycling and reuse of concrete aggregate is touted by Sunshine as having a number of benefits.

These include:

•  Having specification-sized recycled aggregates.

• The avoidance of haul-off costs and landfill disposal fees.

• The elimination of aggregate material imports and exports.

• The increase of project efficiency and improvement of job cost – recycled concrete aggregates yield more volume by weight (up to 15%).

• The minimalization of impacts to community infrastructure by reducing import and export trucking.

Sunshine’s work has been recognized statewide on local road projects.

Orangeburg County earned the “Project of the Year” award in 2013 from the Lower Savannah Council of Governments for its “Paving the Way” project using the crushed concrete generated by Sunshine.

As part of that project, the county took brick and concrete from structures it had demolished to Sunshine to grind into aggregate, which was later sold back to the county at a discounted rate. The county then used the aggregate on its roads.

In addition to Orangeburg County, Bamberg County, Cordova, O’Cain Construction, Palmetto Sitework Services and Porth Contracting Company Inc. have all purchased crushed concrete and asphalt milling for roads and parking lots for their projects in the Midlands, Pratt said.