Main content

The concrete cleaners

Making concrete produces significant carbon emissions, but one company has devised a way of locking carbon dioxide inside the material instead of releasing it into the atmosphere.

Concrete is the most used man-made product in the world but it comes with a heavy environmental price. Between 5% and 7% of the world's annual carbon emissions come from producing the cement that glues concrete together. Most of these climate-changing gases are released when a vital ingredient, limestone, is melted down in the manufacturing process. But one company has devised a new type of cement that only solidifies when you pump carbon dioxide into it. The gas becomes locked in as it turns to concrete. This is similar to the way carbon dioxide has been stored in rocks by nature over millions of years. As Nick Holland reports, it's one of the solutions the industry could use to mitigate its impact on the environment.

(Photo Credit: 大象传媒)

Available now

23 minutes

Last on

Sun 25 Aug 2019 23:06GMT

Broadcasts

  • Tue 20 Aug 2019 02:06GMT
  • Tue 20 Aug 2019 03:06GMT
  • Tue 20 Aug 2019 05:06GMT
  • Tue 20 Aug 2019 06:06GMT
  • Tue 20 Aug 2019 13:06GMT
  • Tue 20 Aug 2019 14:06GMT
  • Tue 20 Aug 2019 17:06GMT
  • Tue 20 Aug 2019 19:06GMT
  • Sun 25 Aug 2019 23:06GMT

People fixing the world on YouTube

Watch stories of people changing their world on the World Service English YouTube channel