Manish Bhartia, Promoter & MD - CDE Asia
Manufactured Sand is our solution to Disappearing Sand.
For over a decade, CDE has been championing the cause of protecting natural sand by creating cutting-edge wet equipment processing technologies that put solutions for environmental sustainability at the forefront. We are consistently investing in meticulous research to come up with wet equipment solutions that will help manage the natural sand shortage, which is now a global issue.
Sand is being mined at a pace that is much faster than its natural renewal rate. The UN believes that sand and gravel, or aggregates, account for up to 85% of all mining activity around the world, measured in weight. A 2014 report by the UN confirms that, globally, more than 40 million tons of sand and gravel are extracted every year.
Worldwide, the legal sand industry is worth $70bn, roughly equivalent to the GDP of Kenya. By 2030, the UN expects 60% of people to live in cities - the construction and development of which require astronomical amounts of sand and aggregates.
The situation, unfortunately, is as bad as it sounds. Not only is the rate of depletion greater than renewal, the situation has also led to illegal sand mining and extraction in many parts of the world, placing even more strain on the resources and a visible impact on the ecological balance with disturbance the region’s flora and fauna.
Quality and environmentally conscious construction companies have resorted to the solutions provided by CDE Asia’s cutting-edge technologies.
CDE Asia provides pathbreaking solutions for combating growing shortages in natural sand, recovering value from low-grade minerals or rejects through beneficiation, and solving the age-old problem of industrial waste disposal, by offering novel recycling techniques to recover useful construction materials. The company has been credited with developing patented and innovative products that have redefined the construction, mining and waste management industries. Its efforts in recycling water and reusing waste have met with favourable government response, especially in times when the world leadership is witnessing a shift in focus towards sustainable processing techniques and extending the value of finite resources.
CDE Asia has countered natural sand shortage with ground-breaking technology such as Combo - a revolutionary and patented product – that washes crushed rock fines to deliver the highest quality of industry-ready, high-quality, washed Manufactured Sand, which is a superior substitute to natural riverine sand.
Our all-new Combo X70 Smart features an intelligent remote monitoring platform and has a range of smart features. It enables real time measurement of critical functions, storage of equipment-usage data for accurate diagnosis during service calls, and broadcast of user warnings for service requirement. It assists users in getting maximum plant performance with maximum equipment availability, such that customers can meet and exceed their production targets.
ReUrban recycles Construction & Demolition Waste into reusable and beneficiated sand, thereby contributing meaningfully to the cause of building Smart Cities. Our Combo and ReUrban products not only beneficiate the quality of concrete, but also inhibit criminal activities such as illegal sand mining, which poses an immediate and long-term threat to the environment.
Dilip Buildcon has bought as many as 28 CDE Asia’s Manufactured Sand Processing Plants.
Dilip Buildcon Ltd, one of our premier clients, is one of India’s most important players in the highways and infra construction segments, which are the key focus areas of the government’s infra development plans.
The company has considerable concrete requirements as the roads being built are not only extensive in length but are also complex in structure with bridges in between and other civil constructions.
Despite owning quarries for the supply of aggregates, Dilip Buildcon had to depend on local sand suppliers for its countrywide operations. The suppliers sourced the sand through extraction from the nearby riverbeds, thereby irrevocably damaging the environment and going against the Green Tribunal, put into motion by the Supreme Court of India that prohibits mining and extraction of river sand for construction. In view of the alarming degradation of the environment, DBL valiantly skirted past the easy and cheap alternative of mixing crusher dust with locally available sand, and opted for the highly recommended and cost-effective manufactured sand extracted through CDE Asia’s green technology solutions.
DBL’s manufactured sand has completely replaced natural sand, saving up to Rs 1,870 mn per year, as disclosed in the company’s website. This is because concrete with manufactured sand has considerable techno-commercial benefits. So, what began as a trial, is today a winning association between CDE Asia and DBL, which is our single largest buyer in terms of total number of plants installed in various project sites across the country.
Giving due credit to the tangible benefits accrued from the solutions provided by CDE Asia, Devendra Jain, CEO, Dilip Buildcon Limited has commented: “We attach a CDE plant with every crusher plant of ours and this has benefitted us immensely. Our dependency on river sand is finished now as we have started producing our own sand. The CDE plants are very good and their service is also very reliable.”
At CDE, our efforts have been to continuously align with the UN SDG goals and work steadily towards a smarter, more innovative and sustainable future. Our successful partnership with DBL is one of the many client relationships that we keep building to help meet our targets for a more environment-friendly future.
We will continue our fight to restore and reclaim sand and aggregates through our patented path-breaking wet processing technologies and have championed the cause of countering natural sand shortage with inventive technology.
CDE Asia, a subsidiary of CDE Global (UK), has been awarded the prestigious DSIR certification as an approved R&D centre and recently it has received an investment of USD 14.5 million from IIFL-AMC to accelerate its growth plans.
As a socially and environmentally responsible organization, we have worked extensively towards creating sustainable solutions that are creating a positive impact on our planet by extending the lifespan of natural resources, and we have aligned ourselves with SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) defined by the UN. Some of our focus areas are:
- Extracting sand from overburden (OB) of mines
- Extracting sand from dredging waste
- Recycling excavation waste from tunnelling projects
- Reclaiming contaminated land through land remediation projects
- Replacing natural sand with manufactured sand
- Recycling urban construction & demolition waste
The outlook for our products and company is very positive across Asia and we have aimed to grow at a rate of 30% y-o-y. At the start of 2020, our regional office for SE Asia in Indonesia will become operational and will help us increase our penetration and exports to the region.
We remain committed to follow and perpetuate a culture of excellence in R&D and are continually inspired by new developments in the field of wet processing equipment. Our skilled R&D team is dedicated to crafting solutions based on existing pain points, creating new brand opportunities in waste materials, maximizing societal value, and offering scalability and commercial success.
As a world leader in the industry, we will continue to challenge assumptions and bring new and exciting products to global markets, which will help us to achieve a cleaner, quieter, safer and more efficient future in partnership with our customers.
NBM&CW December 2019
