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‘Going Green?’
High-Performance Concrete is the Answer!
High-Performance Concrete may very well be one of the most environmentally friendly products in the solid surface industry.
Both “Formica” and all the ‘Corian’ style products require heavy industrial processing and transportation factors that leave a major carbon footprint behind.
Granite quarries employ massive manpower, equipment, and visually scar the landscape. Freight and shipping for overseas granite slabs compounds the CO2 emissions. Recent findings show that most granite slabs actually releases small amounts of radon gas into its environment…your home!
For more info on granite radon gas see article in the ‘The New York Times’, Home & Garden, July 24, 2008, by Kate Murphy. www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/garden/24granite.html
Indeed, the process involved in the manufacture of Portland cement is really not that friendly either. The cement industry contributes a small yet significant portion of world wide carbon dioxide emissions. The extremely high kiln temperatures needed to process ordinary Portland cement, combined with the inherent chemical reactions produce major CO2 emissions.
However, many of the current mix designs used by McGregor Designs utilizes various Portland cement replacements, lowing our overall Portland cement content down to less than 5%. Many of these Pozzolans are derived from post industrial waste, such as blast furnace slag and fly ash.
Additionally, many of our mixes also incorporate alternative aggregates such as recycled glass. We can replace virtually 100% of the natural sand and gravel with crushed glass, all of which is post consumer or industrial material. Our distributor for glass is in Salt Lake City, Utah, so it keeps our transportation cost down significantly. Of course, natural sand and gravel is still an option, and that material is quarried right here in Montana.
Finally, once your gorgeous piece is completed, it only needs to travel from my shop in Red Lodge to your doorstep, without any major over seas shipping.
So if ‘Going Green’ is a concern for your project, High-Performance Concrete should definitely be considered as an option.
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