CDE recycling plant for construction and demolition waste in Norway
It comes as the family-o wned and operated firm is announced as an official climate partner in the city of Oslo, a certification which reflects its commitment to adopting sustainable practices to offset the environmental impact of its own operations and that of the Norwegian materials processing and construction industries as a whole. In pursuit of that, the company has committed to establishing a zero emissions operation by 2025. In 2020, Tom Wilhelmsen AS became the first transport company in Norway to use fully electric tipper trucks for construction operations. Today, it operates six Volvo FE Electric tipper trucks. By 2023, it will double the size of its electric vehicle fleet as it responds to increasing demand for sustainably sourced and processed construction materials.
Fulfilling that demand will be CDE’s state-of-the-art wash plant. With a processing capacity of up to 250 t/h, the plant will accept a variable feed of excavated and contaminated soils to produce a range of new, saleable sand and aggregate products for the construction industry. In-spec end products, including soil, gravel and stone will have applications in cement production, roadworks and other construction, infrastructure and public works projects.
Much like its pledge to minimise noise pollution in the communities in which it operates through the rollout of an all-electric fleet of vehicles, the new CDE plant will be installed indoors in an existing 4400 m2 unit in the Sør-Odal municipality. The benefits of this approach are two-fold, as the indoor plant with exterior stockpiles means the plant can operate year-round and avoid costly downtime as a result of adverse weather conditions.
Taking its pursuit of a truly circular economy one step further, Tom Wilhelmsen AS is currently exploring plans to commission a rail route between its C&D waste reception centre in Oslo and the site of its new CDE wash plant. If approved, plans could see a significant reduction in road transportation as the company transitions to an electrified rail freight line to transport material some 65 km to the processing site.
Eunan Kelly, CDE’s head of business development for Northern Europe, says Tom Wilhelmsen AS is a visionary in sustainability. “Its innovative approaches to transportation, landfill diversion and materials recycling are having a real and meaningful impact in the supply chain for the local construction industry in Oslo. More than simply washing material, Tom Wilhelmsen AS is setting out to establish an operation that manages the entire lifecycle of the material in the most sustainable way possible, from the point of extraction right through to its processing through the CDE plant and from there its return to the market.”
Company founder Tom Wilhelmsen says both companies share the same purpose. “The commissioning of our new CDE plant will mark another important milestone in our mission to create a more greener materials processing industry. Excavated and contaminated soils represent a significant waste stream, but with the backing of CDE technology we can return this material to good use, recovering quality construction materials and reducing our reliance on virgin quarried sand and aggregates.” Groundworks are due to commence this summer with a view to the plant being operational in early next year.
