Fairchild goes green in a 'concrete' type of way

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Earlandez M. Young
  • 92nd Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
FAIRCHILD AIR FORCE BASE, Wash. (AFNS) --  Contractors who are working on the new runway here are crushing tons of concrete from the old runway and going 'green' by recycling it.

The suggestion came in October of last year when engineers here started laying out the blueprint for its brand new $43 million runway.

"When the contractors brought the idea of recycling the concrete to me, I loved it," said Wayne Musselwhite, the 92nd Civil Engineer Squadron chief of construction management.

"This isn't an easy project, so it doesn't just happen overnight, especially when you have an entire runway to redo and when you're planning on recycling 60,000 tons of concrete and approximately 20,000 tons of asphalt," he said.

Contractors will complete the recycling portion of the project by taking the existing concrete from the old runway and crushing then reutilizing it.

"The shoulders will have concrete underneath them and asphalt on the top," Musselwhite said. "The remaining small chunks of asphalt will be recycled and used as field material under the new runway and on the over-runs."

Most of the crushed concrete will be recycled on base; the rest will be donated to the community.

"The county would love to have some crushed concrete to put under the roads, so it is fairly easy to recycle concrete off base," said Stanley Duda, a 92nd CES project manager.

Airman 1st Class James Norwood, with the 92nd Force Support Squadron, says he believes others will recycle more after finding out engineers here recycled close to three miles of concrete.

"I think this will boost morale to recycle more because we're always telling each other to go green, and people think about the usual things we recycle such as paper, cardboard boxes, ..." he said. "But, what about all of the other things we can recycle for example: CDs, DVDs, batteries, clothes and even ink cartridges. We need to be more 'green Americans.'"

The runway is scheduled to be finished in November.