August 23, 2024

By Lane Kimble

RICE LAKE, Wis. — All this spring and summer, hundreds of piles of rubble – looking like small pyramids – dotted the side of US Highway 53 in northwest Wisconsin.

Those piles are quickly disappearing, but aren’t actually going anywhere.  Instead, they’re a key element in rebuilding an 8-mile stretch of the highway, becoming the base course for fresh concrete.

“This works for us a lot of times, not always,” Hoffman Construction President Chris Goss said of recycling concrete.  “It saves on some of the transportation costs but also some of the safety that goes with that, when you’ve got trucks entering and leaving construction sites.”

Smashing, crushing, and grading the old pavement can also reduce costs, the industry’s carbon footprint, and cut down on the amount of dust aggregate can kick up.  But getting the old concrete to this point required the services of a company much earlier in the process.

“We’re here very early on in the project, and then we’re gone… So, it’s nice to see the whole process and get a feel that you’re part of a bigger operation,” Matt Shinners told WTBA during a site visit this year.

Based in the Northwoods, Shinners’ Antigo Construction crews came in with a guillotine-style breaker, smashing the old pavement into bite-size chunks for excavators at a rate of 10,000 square yards per day.

“Makes you feel good sometimes that we’re doing something that is good for everybody in the state and the country,” Shinners said.

Antigo’s expertise and prime contractor Hoffman’s commitment to bringing them in has helped WisDOT easily surpass its goal of recycling at least 10% of materials each of the last six years.

“It’s a win-win-win for taxpayers, the Department, and the contracting industry, I believe,” WisDOT Chief Materials and Pavements Engineer Erik Lyngdal said.