M Sand Advantages

The Manufacturing Process

Rocks or quarry stones are blasted and subjected to a series of crushing cycles to reduce the particles to the size of naturally occurring sand.

The produced sand is then sieved and washed to remove fine particles and impurities, and tested for various quality aspects before it is deemed fit as a construction aggregate. The size specification for manufactured sand is that it should pass completely through a 3/8 inch sieve.

Why Manufactured Sand?

There are various factors that are currently driving the production of manufactured sand:

• Global scarcity for natural sand: Injudicious sand mining and continuous depletion of natural aggregate sources have led to the implementation of new environmental/land use legislations which has made the procurement of natural sand difficult and expensive. Sand dredging is heavily taxed/ banned in many parts of the world.
• Growing demand for fine-aggregates in construction: Nearly 65-80% of the volume of concrete and screed mixes is made up of sand/aggregates. The UK market alone requires an approximate 200 Million Tonnes of aggregates every year for various construction purposes.
• Remote location of sand pits: Licensed sand pits producing the required quality of sand are often located in remote locations, leading to and high costs in transportation.
• Presence of silt and clay in natural sand:  Natural sand is inherently high in silt and clay. It can be damaging for screed and concrete, if the sand is not sufficiently processed to bring down clay and other impurity content to acceptable levels.
• Reduce the wastage of low-value by-products in the quarries: The low value aggregates formed as a by-product of rock crushing can be utilized efficiently to create a high value product.