- On-site Recycling of Waste Generated from Railway Infrastructure -

CHUNCHEON, South Korea – May 14 – The Korea Railroad Research Institute (KRRI) (President: Sagong Myung) conducted a field demonstration on May 13 (Wed.) at a concrete sleeper storage site near Gimyujeong Station in Chuncheon for railway industry officials and other stakeholders, showcasing the “End-of-Life Concrete Sleeper Recycling System,” which crushes, separates, and sorts waste concrete into recyclable materials such as reinforcing steel and aggregates.

This field demonstration was conducted to verify the performance of the mobile recycling system developed to process end-of-life concrete sleepers generated from railway infrastructure on-site. The test involved transporting the system to a railway site, connecting it to an excavator, immediately crushing the waste concrete sleepers, and separating recyclable materials.

In addition, KRRI presented a prototype “sound-absorbing block” produced using recovered aggregates with minimal additional processing, demonstrating its applicability to transportation infrastructure facilities and buildings.

Aggregates recovered from end-of-life concrete sleepers generally contain impurities, making recycling for various applications difficult. However, KRRI developed a technology that recycles recovered aggregates into sound-absorbing blocks without additional processing beyond particle-size sorting.

The sound-absorbing blocks were manufactured by combining recovered aggregates with a minimal amount of binder. Prototypes intended for application in transportation facilities and buildings were presented to attendees at the demonstration site. In the second half of the year, pilot installation in actual environments such as railway stations is planned to verify sound absorption performance and applicability.

The “End-of-Life Concrete Sleeper Recycling System,” which enables on-site processing of waste concrete sleepers, was developed by KRRI through the Ministry of Science and ICT basic research project supported by the National Research Council of Science and Technology (NST) (Chairman: Kim Young-sik), titled “Development of Waste Reduction and Recycling Technologies for Railway Facilities (2022–2024).”

This demonstration directly tested the system’s performance at an actual railway site with the cooperation of the Korea National Railway, as part of the follow-up project titled “Development of a Digital Ecosystem for Environmental Information Across the Entire Railway Lifecycle and Carbon Reduction Element Technologies (2026–2028).”

Lee Jae-young, head of the Transportation Environmental Research Department at KRRI, stated, “Our goal is to reduce carbon emissions through resource circulation by recycling the continuously growing volume of waste concrete sleepers generated from railway infrastructure, utilizing the Waste Concrete Sleeper Recycling System and sound-absorbing blocks.”

President Sagong Myung of KRRI emphasized, “This technology development is part of K-Climate Tech for railways, expanding railway carbon neutrality from an energy-centered approach to resource circulation,” adding, “We will continue to strengthen R&D on carbon reduction technologies based on resource circulation to achieve carbon neutrality in railways by 2050.”

※ Reference: Field Demonstration Photos of the End-of-Life Concrete Sleeper Recycling System
※ Test Video (KRRI YouTube, June, 2025):
https://youtu.be/3iql0Nn2Jfo?si=mrJUTUV9cfn6MD82





Press Contacts
Sunghyun Baek
Korea Railroad Research Institute
baeksh@krri.re.kr
+82 31 460 5162