McLanahan can support its customers at every stage of the journey as demand continues to grow for sandwashing and recycled material products.
McLanahan has seen demand for sand and recycled products grow steadily across several key markets for quarrying and aggregates.
McLanahan business line director for aggregates systems David Hunter told Quarry he expected this trend to continue growing in the coming years.
“As people keep moving to big cities, big cities are going to continue to grow, and as they grow, they’re going to need more civil works, commercial buildings, residential buildings and roads, which will require construction and demolition at the same time,” he said.
“To me, I think the use of construction demolition waste is only going to continue to grow as populations grow. It is one of those areas of the industry that I think will continue to grow globally.
“Especially when you consider logistics, because the further material has to travel, the more economically unviable it becomes. What we typically see is that people want to recycle this material as close to where it comes from as possible to negate this.”
While Europe was an early adopter of recycled materials in the construction sector, other markets, such as the US and Australia, are also showing increased demand.
It is a trend Hunter has witnessed throughout McLanahan’s work with its global customer base.
“The US is starting to get into the notion of construction and demolition waste recycling, and I would say Australia is no further back than the US in that regard. We have some customers actively working in washing and recycling materials,” he said.
“To me, it shows that there is an appetite in Australia for this kind of application. Different states and cities are introducing different taxes and levies to support this, and that’s only going to continue.”
One of McLanahan’s pioneering solutions was established in Townsville, Queensland, where the company worked with family-owned producer Stradacon Penna.
The family operation, owned by David and Vivienne Penna, supplies materials for the Townsville market, including aggregate, recycled concrete products, and sands.
A few years ago, Stradacon Penna approached McLanahan’s Australian dealer Lincom about adding a wash plant for size classification to its site. McLanahan’s UltraWASH Modular Wash Plant was installed quickly and efficiently.
Later, the Townsville-based producers added a McLanahan modular scrubbing system which could accept construction and demolition waste and remove lightweight debris and organic material from the aggregate.
With the new McLanahan Modular Scrubbing System, the family business could reduce the amount of foreign material in its waste feed.
“We first became aware of the McLanahan product range through our long-standing relationship with Lincom. They’ve supplied us pretty much all of our crushing equipment throughout the years, and they maintain a very good relationship with us,” Penna said.
“The whole operation, the scrubber system coupled with the wash plant, enables us to treat this demolition waste and send it back into industry like an as-new state.
“The UltraWASH is allowing us to operate without dust, which is absolutely critical to us. Its reliability is just outstanding.”
Hunter said that the Stradacon Penna solution was an example of how McLanahan can tailor solutions to the customer’s requirements.
“It is a great example of the uses of our modular sand washing plants, and they have added a coarse material screw washer. It allows them to float out the debris and organics in construction demolition waste material so they can feed that back in cleanly and then trickle it in with their virgin product,” he said.
“They put back in 10 to 15 per cent of recycled material with their virgin material, but it is clean, good quality material going back out the gate again.”
To serve its Australian customer base, McLanahan maintains a strong relationship with Lincom as its Australian dealer.
“I would say there is rarely a day that goes by when someone from our team is not in some discussion with Lincom, they’ve been our dealer for several years. We’re talking to them daily about different sand washing projects,” he said.
“We regularly get on calls with Lincom and the customer to have a discussion, and in some cases, someone from our team will go out to Australia to meet the customer as well.”
The US-headquartered manufacturer is celebrating its 190th year in 2025. It supplies many, if not all, of the key global aggregates markets, including Australia, with solutions from sand washing through to crushing and screening, and much more.
While all of these markets can be highly dynamic as regulations change and production methods are tweaked, Hunter said the company is well-positioned to support customers through its broad product range.
“It helps that we do have a very broad range of equipment for applications like sand washing and processing,” he said.
“A lot of the technology that is used in the sand washing process has been around for quite some time. We have a lot of the equipment that is needed for sand and aggregates washing.
“We also have a very broad range of mineral processing expertise, and I think that is key as well. We have team members with 40 years of experience in minerals processing, and there are very few applications they haven’t seen.
“We can use that industry knowledge to tailor a solution to our quarry customers. The key is that we don’t try to take a one-size-fits-all approach; we take it on a case-by-case basis, and we make sure our teams are working closely with the customer.
“Ultimately, you can’t lose sight of what the customer is trying to achieve and that’s what we’re focused on.” •
For more information, visit mclanahan.com
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