Did you know that in the United States alone, construction and demolition (C&D) debris such as wood, concrete, brick, gypsum, fiberglass, plastic, and select solid waste material (SWM) such as rubber tires, produce over 600 million tons of waste a year?  That’s more than twice the amount of municipal waste our counties pick up from our curbside garbage cans across the Country.  It is a growing and worldwide problem that is clogging our landfills.

These materials began as a natural resource that were extracted from the earth by cutting or mining and turned into wonderful materials that we all use and enjoy during their useful life.  But then what?  That question is what keeps our Miami Echo team energized.

From Shredded Tire Inc., we evolved into Miami Echo as opportunities to expand our footprint into shredded wood waste from construction sites, and shredded fiberglass from expired windmill blades (lifespan of only 20 years) are now before us.  Both have enormous potential as we begin applying what we’ve learned in the shredding, blending, testing, and building with our shredded tire technology.  What took us seven years with tires, we expect to answer the wood and windmill blade “next-use” question in as little as two.

What is it that we do?  Most solid waste materials involve fibers, be it tires with nylon strands, in wood, fiberglass and so on. We have found that those very fibers are the connecting link between the material when in shredded form.  With a blend of mostly waste cements such as cement slag (a waste product from iron ore production) and silica fume (waste product from the making of silicon) we create a 93% recycled content mixture by adding just seven percent of virgin portland cement. The fibers become impregnated with the patented cement mixture and these millions of fiber-to-fiber connections become the “rebar” that makes the structure impenetrable and very strong.  Therefore, it is the perfect material to construct millions or even billions of poured in place or block-built homes throughout the world with unskilled labor and with materials that are locally sourced in every country.  These homes will last for many generations, are hurricane tested, two-hour fire rated, insulated, bullet proof, maintenance free, termite proof and very inexpensive to build.

The world needs homes, billions of them over the next few decades and every nation has the right to utilize their own natural resources to build them unless there is a cheaper, better, and longer-lasting alternative for them to consider.   That is what we provide at Miami Echo.

Finally, building billions of homes would be irresponsible if the “next-use” wasn’t considered at inception (a concept that must catch on).  Our shredded building materials are “forever reusable” by utilizing a mining tool called a Jaw Crusher.  When our material is crushed, the cement binding products become powder and the fibers come back to life to be reused to build the next generation of homes.