beneficiation
natural and manufactured crusher sand as a solution ,” says Paton .
Other trends on the radar
As far as technology is concerned , Afrimat is slowly moving away from dry batch plants towards wet batching . “ There are quality , environmental , and production benefits that we believe are advantageous to our customer base and product delivery in the long term .”
European countries and the United States have made wet batch plants a regulatory requirement in most of its regions , and therefore , keeping up with this technological best practice is important for Afrimat as a business , says Paton . “ We have four wet plants in the Western Cape , making us the largest wet batch plant operator in the province .”
In addition , Paton says the industry is seeing a return in the demand for ‘ green ’ concrete , specifically in the Western Cape .
The green building boom gave rise to an interest in green concrete , but it slowed down as the market hit a recession post- 2010 . Although demand has reduced , Paton believes green concrete is starting to make a market comeback , in line with the trend of aggregate recycling in Europe .
“ Unfortunately , concrete does not give a builder many green building score points , and thus it has not been the priority over the past few years . The focus has been on HVAC , energy efficiency , and water initiatives , rather than concrete . Recently we seem to have noticed renewed interest , driven by global trends , and Afrimat will certainly respond to this trend ,” Paton concludes . n
“ If you have a good quality fine aggregate , you can produce concrete with very low water requirements . Unfortunately , the good quality sand has been exhausted at a rapid pace over the last couple of years .”
QUARRY SA | march 2017 _ 27