What has changed to bring about this surge in popularity? In a word, technology. The technology for making decorative concrete work has dramatically improved of late. With the use of fiber reinforcement, concrete artisans can now make thin, lightweight concrete in any form imaginable. With the flexibility to make concrete in any color and shape, it has enormous creative potential. It can be both poured and sprayed on to any surface.

More and more Architects and Designers are calling for concrete in their designs.

We have been making concrete kitchen countertops, bathtub surrounds and bathroom vanities for many years in our Evanston shop, for the greater Chicago area, but in recent times, our other custom work has surged in demand.

This applies to the north shore communities of such as Evanston, Wilmette, Winnekta, Kenilworth, Glenview, Northbrook, Highland Park and Glencoe. It also applies to Northwestern suburbs such as Arlington Heights, Barrington and North Barrington and Buffalo Grove, and Western suburbs such as Oak Park, and Naperville.

When you think of concrete, you likely think of big diesel trucks, heavy industry, and construction, not locally produced green products. So how can concrete countertops, sinks or furniture possibly be green?

Concrete has three major components: gravel or sand, cement and water.

About 80% of concrete is sand and gravel (knows as aggregate), which in our case, comes from gravel pits around Chicago.

About 20% of concrete is made up of cement. This is the glue that holds the sand and gravel together. It is made in kilns at almost 1500 degrees and it produces large quantities of carbon dioxide and other pollutants. Definitely not green.

So how can concrete get green?
The first thing we can now do is replace the sand and gravel with recycled glass as an aggregate. The ideal would be post-consumer recycled glass, as this is extremely abundant. (It is all the glass we put in our recycling bins), but it is somewhat expensive to clean and prepare for use.

The next best type of glass would be post-industrial recycled glass. This is things like overruns from bottle manufacturers and broken glass from factories. This is typically clean and easier to process.

What about the cement? Can it be replaced? Some of the cement can be replaced with fly ash. Fly ash is a fine, glass-like powder recovered from gases created by coal-fired electric power generation. U.S. power plants produce millions of tons of fly ash annually, which is usually dumped in landfills.

So what are we at Kerr Concrete Designs doing to make our custom poured concrete countertops vanities and furniture more green for the Chicago market? Over the next 6 months, we will be switching from local sand and gravel aggregate to all post-industrial recycled glass aggregate from Chicago and the Chicago area. We will also be replacing some of our cement with fly ash.

This means that not only will our concrete countertops, sinks and furniture be a locally produced product, made in our Evanston shop. Our concrete will also contain over 80% recycled content. Local  products made with recycled glass content.
It’s really exciting to see how local and green concrete can get!