How to Recycle Concrete Into Urbanite for a Unique Garden

Besides colorful flowers and greeneries, you can decorate your garden with exceptional decorations from recycled concrete – urbanite.

Before getting into the details, let’s learn a little more about the urbanite.

What is urbanite?

Broken pieces of waste concrete are known as an urbanite – a concrete recycling method. This method creates beautiful garden decorations like walkaways, patios, walls, and many more creations.

A little creativity added to the concrete waste can turn into something beautiful and valuable.

How to Recycle Concrete Into Urbanite?

If you take a closer look around you, you’ll notice that waste concrete / urbanite is available almost everywhere. You can collect this waste from a demolition site.

Another option is to collect old concrete from your property. Try breaking up the concrete using a sledgehammer, pry bar, or maybe a jackhammer.

Here are some points you need to keep in mind while recycling concrete:

• Don’t bring the whole pile home if you’re collecting waste concrete from someone else’s pile. Be selective about the sizes and shapes you’d need
• Take a few pieces extra than what you need as this will later help you in case you run out of the required size
• Make sure no metal or rebar are poking out, and remember to wear gloves for safety
• While crushing the concretes, don’t forget to remove any wood, paper, or trash debris and get rid of leftover metals / rebar using devices like magnets
• In case you can’t find concretes, you can always check Craigslist for concretes, and often the broken concretes are free
• Use a hammer and chisel to give your concrete the desired shape and size

Uses of Recycled Concrete

Urbanite – the broken and manageable pieces of waste concrete can be repurposed and reused in many ways. Urbanite is a preferred option for garden decorations because:

• It’s incredibly cost-effective, more like zero cost
• As the material is recycled, all the embodied energy can be captured in the actual concrete
• It doesn’t require any mining
• Very flexible
• Long-lasting and durable

You can bring retaining walls or landscaping gravel to your garden using urbanite.

Here are the urbanite options you can opt for to make your garden unique:

• Make a patio or pathway using the urbanites. You can make it colorful using eco-friendly colors and give your garden a pop of color. Pour sand or gravel in the blank spaces of the urbanites or maybe plant some ground covers, let them grow, and complete the whole look. Don’t skip this part unless you want to experience settling once it rains
• You can also beautify your garden using the urbanites. To line your garden beds, you can go for a vertical wall. Or, if you have enough urbanites, you can also opt for a keyhole style raised garden bed. If you’re determined to create vertical decorations, make sure you choose the same width stones to avoid any hassle. However, length variation is acceptable
• Once you have sorted all your urbanites and are ready to go, the first thing you want to ensure is that the largest block is always on the bottom layer. Keep adding the following layers maintaining the balance. In case you’re going for the third or more layers, make sure the gaps are not lined up above or below the urbanites
• Landscape walls are also a great addition to your garden as the urbanite’s material is super solid and durable. This can even last forever
• If you want to make the garden experience more fun, consider adding a cob oven to it. And an urbanite base will give the best support to hold it straight. Once the urbanite base ring is multiple feet high from the ground, throw in some rubble, sandbags, and broken tv sets to fill the blank space
• Another fun creation is a pond wall. Making a pond wall in your garden will attract birds and make it more alive. You can also decorate it with eye-catching foliage. A little height of the pond wall will add dimension and variation to your garden. Build the pond wall using a combination of big rocks and urbanites
• Don’t forget the urbanite retaining walls. It’s a great combo of usefulness and decoration. It looks very classy, and it retains heat and soil. The heat retention of the wall ensures that none of the plants are damaged due to any nasty late spring frost. You can build the wall in any shape, design, height, and layers you want. Just shape the urbanite accordingly, and you’re good to go
• If you have a front yard garden, you can go for a parking surface. To get this done, here are the steps you’ll need to follow:
  • Get rid of the topsoil and level the subsoil on the surface
  • Add a weed barrier and pour ¾ inch gravel
  • Put the urbanites according to the level
  • Put some more gravels in the black spaces, and your parking surface is ready to be used

Make sure you use permeable pavers to avoid any rain erosion.

Benefits of Using Urbanite

Besides increasing the beauty of your garden and making it one of a kind, installing urbanites rather than pouring concrete has several benefits. The most effective benefit is the drainage.

While a concrete slab can’t give proper protection – to your garden decorations – from water, urbanites can help drain all the water into the ground making sure there’s no water saturating any low spots. The reason is that the concrete slabs are impermeable, but the urbanites have an absorbent quality that allows the water to soak in the ground.

Another benefit of opting for the urbanites is the unbelievable cost. And sometimes people don’t even pay for the materials as it’s considered waste, so it’s given away for free.

Imagine giving your garden a complete and unique makeover without spending a penny for the materials yet contributing to the environment. Exciting, isn’t it?

Although it is a waste, the urbanites are still highly usable.

Conclusion

That concludes all the possibilities you’ll have using urbanites for your garden. The urbanite resources are available in a massive amount in our surroundings. Although it’s just a waste material, you’ll still have plenty of designs / decorations to look forward to with a bit of creative touch.