Blog: Clay's Carbon Crusade: From Ancient Origins to Shaping a Sustainable Future

Clay minerals stand out for their remarkable versatility with their advantages recognised by ancient civilisations, who used clay to create pottery, bricks and various construction materials. Today, these minerals permeate our daily lives, used in products across a multitude of sectors, from consumer goods to agriculture, industrial uses, construction and beyond.  

Now, clay’s properties are being tested and researched for new and sustainable products in diverse fields. By harnessing their capabilities there’s potential to strengthen carbon reduction efforts across a wide array of applications. This ancient material has a great future!

We offer a range of sustainable mineral solutions to help organisations meet their green goals. In their purest form, we mine primary clay deposits using sustainable techniques and provide these materials as key components for creating bricks, cement kilns and green landscapes.

Speciality Minerals

Our site on an old disused Victorian brickworks and ash pit also provides a unique environment to transform clay into innovative mineral and soil formulations. We rigorously formulation test the material for various properties and provide bespoke solutions tailored to industrial needs, regenerative agriculture, carbon capture, biodiversity, and emerging markets.

Minerals repurposing

We also source locally discarded materials from construction and demolition projects, as well as the waste sector and repurpose minerals. These are used to produce recycled sub 10mm fill materials suitable for asphalt in road surfaces, and aggregates in construction projects. From general fill, granular material, cohesive and stony cohesive fill material, we’ve got you covered.

Reducing CO2 emissions at the same time as meeting global demand is the main challenge facing the cement industry today. This is precisely where our clay minerals can step in to lend a helping hand. We offer recycled sand, gravel, and pipe bedding materials from +10mm to 30mm for concrete and block manufacturers.

Sustainable construction products

Calcined clay is gaining increasing recognition as a low-carbon cement supplement, as it reduces the need to heat limestone to very high temperatures. Our supplementary cementitious material (SCM) can increase durability and compressive strength, extending the service life of the concrete.

Clay’s role in biodiversity solutions

In a previous blog, we also highlighted our expertise in manufacturing engineered, sustainable recycled soil and primary clay mixtures to provide developers with bespoke biodiversity solutions. These can be used to create natural habitats such as wildflower meadow, wetlands, woodlands, grasslands, or hedgerows.

If you’d like to find out more about how clay minerals can lead the way in your carbon reduction strategies, please get in touch with us.