Ghayathi crusher: how Abu Dhabi turns construction waste into stone

Sixty-metre machine recycles up to 2,000 tonnes of rubble a day

A few years ago, the Ghayati area was a remote patch of sand in the Abu Dhabi desert.

But now, 2,000 tonnes of construction waste are recycled every day into material that builds the country's roads.

It all happens in the Ghayathi desert – about 250 kilometres west of the capital – where a 60-metre crusher turns huge stones into gravel.

All stone from construction sites and demolished buildings in Al Dhafra is recycled, reused and sold to boost the economy. Previously the waste was taken to landfill.

The crusher opened in 2018, then closed for a few years but reopened in January and expects to process hundreds of thousands of tonnes of waste this year.

“Now we can sell it and use it for infrastructure projects such as road construction,” said Khalid Al Khanbashi, senior waste officer at Tadweer.

“This boosts the economy by providing reusable material rather than collecting it from natural resources," he said.

“It also opens the door for investments in the waste-management field."

Al Dhafra is a region on the rise. Sir Bani Yas Island is one of the country's top tourist destinations. Ruwais, once a small oil town, is being transformed with new parks, shops, markets and beach developments, while the first operational line of Etihad Rail runs from the Shah and Habshan gas fields to Ruwais.

The crusher receives its waste chiefly from projects in these areas – and the work is painstaking and methodological. The area is piled with massive loads of waste. A tractor first takes a load to the examination station. The material is inspected and checked by camera to ensure it is suitable for crushing.

It is then cleaned before being fed into the crushing plant. The waste travels on a magnetic conveyer belt where any metals or contaminated materials are removed.

Source: The National News