Concrete is one of those building materials that is so prevalent in our environment that we hardly notice it. The Egyptians and the Romans were using concrete in construction more than seven thousand years ago. Its ingredients come from readily available materials: water, aggregate (sand and gravel or crushed stone), and cement. Considering the length of time concrete has been in use, it seems to be an inexhaustible resource that we can use in building construction with little fear of depleting our supplies.

Pella-DRX. Manufactured by Sharps.

While the continued consumption of any natural resource is not “good” for the environment, concrete is a nearly inert material that can be recycled to create more concrete for the future. Current sensitivity to sustainability has resulted in the use of many landfill bound materials as filler in the production of concrete. Otherwise trash or industrial byproducts such as blast furnace slag, recycled polystyrene and fly ash (a byproduct of coal-burning electric plants), are commonly used in the making of concrete.

Pella-DRX, as covered by Inhabitat, is a creative solution for the repurposing of medical waste into a concrete additive. Currently medical waste (such as syringes and needles), is collected in special sharps containers and sent off to be processed and inevitably to end up in a landfill. Sharps Compliance, has come up with a way to sterilize and grind up the doomed waste into pellets that can be used in building products such as concrete. Pella-DRX has the ability to eliminate medical waste entirely for Sharps Compliance. Products such as this suggest a revolution in “renewable resources” which are based on human consumption and reuse of materials that have already been removed from the natural environment.