Environmental Uses of Aggregate

Aggregates are used in numerous environmental applications that protect and improve our environment:

• Drinking water and waste systems use specialty sands for filtering;
• Fluid bed smoke stack scrubbers use limestone to neutralize acid emissions prior to release into the atmosphere;
• Quarried limestone (agricultural lime) is used to improve agricultural soil condition and produce organic fertilizers;
• Aggregates are used to coat paper to make it white rather than using a chemical bleaching process to whiten wood fiber;
• Gravel is used to improve or create spawning beds for fish habitat such as trout, walleye and bass; and
• Quarried rock, in the form of rip-rap and gabion baskets, is used to protect shorelines from erosion and filter storm water basins.