Glass Pozzolan Wins Innovation Award

Pozzotive glass pozzolan won a 2023 Innovative Product or Service award at the recent National Ready Mixed Concrete Association (NRMCA) conference in Las Vegas. As part of  NRMCA’s Build With Strength sustainability initiative, the organization gives out awards for products that show a “commitment to improving the resilience, performance, and sustainability of concrete.”

Urban Mining Industries’ Pozzotive uses recycled waste glass as a supplementary cementitious material (SCM) that can replace high-global-warming-potential portland cement. It can be also used in place of fly ash, which can potentially contain mercury, or slag from iron smelting, both of which come from high-carbon-emitting sources.

Pozzotive is not new. BuildingGreen first gave it a Top 10 product award back in 2009 for its use in concrete blocks, but we gave it another when it became an SCM for ready-mix applications. We recognized Pozzotive because it has a number of advantages over other SCMs. Pozzotive can potentially replace up to 40% of portland cement in a mix while improving the concrete’s overall strength and permeability. All the while, it makes use of a readily available, recyclable material: post-consumer glass. It is also inert, unlike more reactive SCMs like slag or silica fume, and is amorphous silica, so it doesn’t pose a silicosis risk.

Urban Mining Industries currently produces Pozzotive in its Beacon Falls, Connecticut, facility and is increasing capacity with a new plant under construction in Watertown, Connecticut, which should bring Pozzotive to more customers in the Northeast.

More about reducing concrete’s carbon footprint

Using Low-Carbon Concrete in Your Next Project

Neutralizing the Downsides of Concrete

A New Standard for Replacing Cement with Recycled Glass

Marin County First to Adopt Low-Carbon Concrete Code