As our cities grow and we build the equivalent of New York City every month we need to make space for new buildings by demolishing the old ones This generates billions of tons of construction demolition materials (CDM) each year Recovering CDM to build new from old is essential to create a circular economy that preserves primary resources and accelerates the shift towards a net-zero built environment circularity is at the core of everything we do and we aim to turn every metropolitan area where we operate into a recycling hub and we're on track to recycle 10 million tons per annum To achieve this, Holcim is creating a network of CDM recycling centers across Europe. One of these sites, Recycling Center Ostschweiz (RCO) in Niederstetten Switzerland - which we operate through a joint venture with Zürcher Kies und Transport AG - opened its doors in May 2021 and is making a significant contribution to sustainable This 20,000m2 site is unique in Eastern Switzerland crush and reuse contaminated mineral excavation and demolition waste.  digitization and highly automated processes it produces a wide range of recyclable building materials for the regional market that match primary products in quality and aesthetics RCO processes unpolluted mineral excavation and demolition materials using a dry mechanical process we can recycle additional materials that would otherwise be sent to landfill track ballast and excavated materials – both contaminated and contaminated The fully automated process involves two innovative twin-shaft crushers sand processing and material storage in a silo Rainwater is treated in a circuit and fed in as washing water with the resulting fine materials de-watered in a filter press RCO can recycle around 200,000 tons of material every year to produce high-quality sustainable building materials – gravel or mixed granules for use in everything from certified concrete or certified aggregates That’s enough to build over 500 single-family houses entirely from recycled material and the aggregates can even be used to produce concrete at Holcim’s nearby plant in Niederstetten Using our proprietary ECOCycle® technology we can build cities from cities upcycling up to 100% of CDM into new solutions thanks to Holcim’s proprietary advanced processing technology so resources get reused and nothing is lost This reduces waste sent to landfill and our dependence on primary materials grind and recycle construction demolition materials into new building solutions with no performance compromises we will have over 150 ECOCycle® platforms in operation in Europe alone According to Switzerland’s Waste Ordinance mineral construction waste should be sorted and recycled as far as possible into secondary raw materials and RCO is making a significant contribution to sustainability and circularity efforts in its region committed to recycling mineral construction waste and using it as construction material in order to achieve the sustainable closure of material cycles By recycling a wide range of polluted and unpolluted material RCO helps the canton save landfill space and natural gravel resources The Niederstetten site is also home to RCO’s new company building constructed entirely from recycled building materials this serves as a showroom to show customers and the public all of the advantages of sustainable and circular building materials state-of-the-art facility is designed to take in a greater variety of waste material than most other processing centers and close the material loop by almost 100%.  In Switzerland, we are rolling out circular construction at our cement plants and continuing to grow in this space through M&A, with four European acquisitions in 2024 to date, one of which, Cand-Landi SEE ALL STORIES Holcim is a global leader in innovative and sustainable building solutions with net sales of CHF 26.4 billion in 2024 Our 65,000 employees are driven by our purpose to build progress for people and the planet across our regions to improve living standards for all We partner with our customers to offer the broadest range of advanced solutions from sustainable building materials ECOPact and ECOPlanet all the way to Elevate’s advanced roofing and insulation systems This work, Bundeswehr Firefighters suit up for training at USAG Ansbach, by Jacqueline Haderlein, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright