A new CDE wash plant in the west of England is enabling recycling company B&A Group to supply high-quality recycled aggregates that meet the increasing demand for more sustainable construction products.
Bristol & Avon (B&A) Group has reinforced its commitment to the circular economy with a multi-million pound investment in a state-of-the-art CDE wash plant.
West of England-based aggregates recycling and transport company B&A Group says the plant at its Avonmouth site is set to be the largest of its kind in the UK.
The facility, which began operating in July 2025, marks a major step forward for the company, which was bought by construction materials group Heidelberg Materials in May 2024. It expands B&A’s recycling capabilities beyond dry recycling to handling a wide range of washed materials, from sands and gravels to graded aggregates.
The plant uses water and mechanical processes that clean soil of pollutants and unwanted materials, creating high-quality aggregates suitable for recycled concrete and asphalt.
B&A’s new wash plant separates, washes and processes up to 400,000 tonnes of excavated waste a year – mostly soils – from construction, demolition and industrial sites, public works and utility projects.
“We had decided we wanted the new wash plant and spoke to several manufacturers, but CDE was our preferred choice,” explains B&A Group managing director Helen Griffin. “During the acquisition we hoped that Heidelberg would support us and agree that CDE was the best wash plant, and they did.”
She adds that the wash plant diverts more material from landfill and on-site washing helps meet environmental permit standards and avoids contamination concerns, supporting regulatory compliance.
Helen adds that Heidelberg is looking at increasing the opportunities to set up recycling hubs on the sites that it owns.
In September 2023 Heidelberg Materials UK set up a recycling division headed by managing director James Whitelaw (the former MD of its aggregates division), which is a new business line focusing on recovering and reusing C&D waste to support the circular economy and is responsible for organic growth and acquisitions within the recycling sector. The division includes B&A Group and the Manchester-based construction waste removal and recycling company A1 Services, which it acquired in 2022 and has rebranded as Heidelberg Materials.
The B&A plant uses water and mechanical processes to clean soil of pollutants and unwanted materials to create high-quality aggregates suitable for recycled concrete and asphalt.
The facility supports B&A’s strategy to increase annual throughput from approximately 250,000 to 450,000 tonnes of construction and demolition (C&D) waste. It also aligns with Heidelberg Materials UK’s wider strategy to conserve natural resources while strengthening its recycling and circular economy capabilities.
The wash plant can process around 2,000 tonnes of C&D waste per working day and enables B&A Group to achieve its throughput target of 450,000 tonnes a year.
It can produce a range of washed recycled aggregates suitable for construction use, including: washed pipe bedding (+80mm), washed pipe bedding (40-80mm), washed pipe bedding (20-40mm), washed pipe bedding (10-20mm), 4-10 washed pipe bedding, washed 0-4 grit sand, and washed 0-2 fine sand.
The wash plant recovers, washes and separates waste material on-site. The washed material is reprocessed to produce recycled aggregates, which B&A Group says meets an ever-increasing demand from the construction industry.
The plant’s drainage and water recovery system captures and recirculates the water used, minimising environmental impact.
The benefits B&A has received from the plant include: providing a reliable source of high-quality recycled aggregates; more waste diverted from landfill, reducing the need for off-site treatment and cutting transport costs; an increase in operational efficiency due to rapid and continuous processing; and compliance with environmental regulations.
A range of waste material can be processed from construction, demolition and industrial sites, public works and utility projects. The CDE plant can process aggregates of all sizes and can separate and categorise material by size and composition. Inert and non-hazardous C&D waste can be processed such as brick, concrete, asphalt, crushed rock, soils and sands.
The plant has increased the number of products B&A Group can offer to its customers: “We’ve been talking about ReadyMix before, but now we produce sand, thus we can go into ReadyMix, which we couldn’t have done without that,” Helen says.
Founded in 1993 by the late Jimmy Berkely, B&A Group was managed by the Berkely family until the Heidelberg Materials acquisition. The company now has a team of 70, operating a substantial fleet of over 50 vehicles and with access to over 100 approved subcontractors. It has become a leader in the South-West of England for land regeneration solutions, material management services, and the supply and transport of recycled & quarried aggregates.
Prior to the installation of the new CDE washing plant, B&A Group was focused on dry recycling using screeners and crushers. The company’s recovery and waste process enables it to use suitable soil and waste material excavated from construction sites and reuse it for valid purposes on other projects. This prevents the ‘waste’ material from ending up in landfill as well as reducing the need to harvest new materials from untouched resources.
“We try not to dispose of any materials in the recycling process and recover all of it, but the bit we were missing was the wet recycling,” Helen says. “The Berkely family had always had their eyes on wanting a wet recycling process.”
She adds that the process to select the correct wash plant was conducted very carefully with a lot of site visits and tours. “It’s a difficult type of material that we are processing, we are trying to produce a quality product from a waste product.
“For us it was [important] how robust a plant could be and the CDE plant was the most robust. They described it as like a 25-year marriage between the two of us, and they are already thinking of what the plant could be used for in the future. They try and produce plants that have longevity and are future-proofed. There was a lot of discussion about additional tanks for hazardous processing and putting another filter press in if we need to if we move over to processing hazardous waste and soils.”
The CDE project manager for setting up the plant at B&A Group was David Gordon. Installation began in March 2025, with the Avonmouth site remaining in operation throughout the process, and the plant was operational by July. The plant can operate with a team of three people, headed by wash plant manager Derek Filipowicz.
The geographic areas B&A Group serves covers Exeter in the south-west, Cheltenham and Gloucester, south Wales, Swindon, and Oxford in the east of England.
“Derek was my yard manager and hadn’t had previous experience with a wash plant, but he’s taken to it brilliantly,” says Helen. “I brought him on board about four weeks before the plant was operational to read all the manuals and start working with CDE while we were commissioning and he’s been really great.”
The wash plant supplies internal sales of materials to the Heidelberg ready-mix concrete business, as well as external customers including nearby block manufacturer LGW Group.
B&A Group has now achieved the BS EN 12620 standard for any sand going into concrete manufacture.
“We’re very proud of that because it’s really difficult for recycling companies to get the British standard for sand,” Helen adds. “The customers for our new products will be the same people we were supplying the dry aggregates to. A lot of it is going for pipe bedding and drainage.”
B&A Group has just completed a major project dispatching 13,000 tonnes of higher-end material to go into a drainage blanket.
Referring to the day the plant started operating she says: “When you watch the soil and muck arrive and then it’s washed and you get an exceptionally clean aggregate, I phoned Heidelberg up and said ‘Who needs a quarry when you’ve got this quality of material?’ That’s what really impressed me, the quality of the single-sized aggregate that came out.”
Helen says that historically recycled aggregates have had something of a poor reputation, but this is now changing and more companies are contacting B&A Group about using them to replace primary aggregates.
“When you spoke to people, they’d say ‘I’m not going to go for recycled because it’s poor quality, especially if I’ve got an important project or road construction or drainage that’s got to get signed off by local authority.’ I think it’s had a poor reputation, but as time has moved on technology’s improved, the quality’s improved, and I think that’s why we’re seeing an uptake in recycled aggregates now.
“What I feel more comfortable with now is our quality is really high, so we’re less concerned with going into any application because the quality is high.”
The material processing workflow in detail
The elements comprising the CDE wash plant include an R4500 primary scalping unit, an AggMax 250 scrubbing and classification system, an AquaCycle 900 thickner that treats dirty water, an AquaStore that stores clean water, and a ProPress X4-200 filter press that dewaters the sludge for maximum material recovery and dry cake disposal.
Pre-screening: Material initially passes through the R4500 primary scalping unit.
Double-deck screening: The material is then discharged into the high-amplitude P2-75 double-deck screen. The top deck is fitted with bolar bars and tines, and the bottom deck is made of steel mesh. The thorough screening process removes excess clay and separates out material larger than 80mm, while a conveyor carries the 0-80mm material forward for further processing.
Metal removal and washing: An overband magnet above the conveyor removes ferrous metals before the material enters the wash box, where high-pressure water improves separation and screening efficiency.
Fine screening: The P2-75 Pre-Screen removes fine particles under 4mm. Material smaller than 4mm flows by gravity into the AggMax sump, while material larger than 4mm is directed into the RotoMax Log Washer.
The log washer scrubs and breaks down clay-bound aggregates. Process water carries away fines and light containments via the AggMax 250’s overflow weirs.
A D1-63 trash screen removes lightweight debris released from the waste aggregate during scrubbing.
Post-screening: Washed aggregates are then rinsed on the H3-45 triple deck, which removes remaining fines and moisture.
Water, clays and fines pass through the bottom deck to the primary hydrocyclones, while post-screened aggregates continue to a secondary magnet that removes any remaining ferrous metals.
Dry screening: The material then passes to the P3-75 dry screen, which separates it into four product sizes: 4-10mm, 10-20mm, 20-40mm and 40-80mm.
Sand classification and dewatering: All slurry smaller than 4mm flows into the AggMax sump and is pumped to two primary hydrocyclones. These separate silt and clay from the main sand fraction.
The underflow is sent to the CFCU200 classifier which separates material by density. Lightweight organics are removed via classifier weirs, improving sand quality for concrete use.
Cleaned sand (<4mm) is discharged to a split dewatering screen, where spray bars remove excess water. Any remaining slurry is treated in a secondary hydrocyclone, and recovered material is returned to the screen. The final product is a 0-2mm high-quality sand with 12-15% moisture content.
Water management and sludge treatment
The AquaCycle 900 thickener processes up to 900 m3/h of water. A deaeration chamber and automated flocculant dosing system (Auto-Floc) ensure efficient sedimentation based on real-time variations in silt concentration.
Clarified water passes through a self-cleaning static screen where lightweight and organic debris is captured. Other floating debris is collected by a scum scraper for further treatment at the AggMax 250, where anti-foam dosing takes place.
The 300m3 buffer tank prevents sludge from settling by constantly mixing it with an agitator. This ensures a consistent sludge flow from the AquaCycle 900 to the filter press.
Filter press (Pro Press X4-200): The filter press has 200 plates and a 20m3 capacity. Sludge is pumped into the press under pressure, where filtered liquid is extracted, leaving behind solid filter cakes.
Residual sludge is flushed back to the buffer tank, while the cakes are further dried with compressed air, then discharged automatically. An automatic cloth wash system supports the 10m3 black water tank, keeping filtration efficient for the next cycle.
