FACTS
CEMENT AND BULK MATERIALS
Globally, roughly
4 billion
t
of cement is manufactured
annually, with roughly
14 million
t coming from
Canada.
Thomas Edison held
49
concrete patents.
Portland Cement
was first developed
by Joseph Aspdin,
an enterprising
19
th
century British
stonemason.
The average new
house contains
120 t
of sand,
gravel and stone.
The Pantheon in Rome was
built in about
120AD
and
is the largest unreinforced
concrete dome in the world.
Aggregates production
accounts for about half of
the non-fuel mining volume
in the
United States.
Roman concrete, or ‘opus caementicium’ was based on a
hydraulic-setting cement.
It has been estimated
that materials handling
in all forms represents
about one seventh of UK
GNP. Roughly
50%
of this
by volume is in bulk or
powder form.
The Ship on Shore
pub in Sheerness
is supposedly built
from barrels of
Portland cement
plundered from a
local shipwreck.
