When is on-site crushing cheaper than carting concrete to the tip?

On most jobs with a worthwhile volume of clean, hard material. Carting is three costs in one (haulage, tip fees and buying base back in), while crushing on site is a single per-tonne rate and you keep the product. Once all three carting costs are counted, on-site crushing usually wins clearly.

When does carting to the tip still make more sense?

When the volume is genuinely small, when the material is contaminated or mixed and cannot be cleanly crushed, or when there is no room on site to run a crusher and stockpile the product. In those cases a skip or tip run is the better call, and we will tell you so.

How much site space does the crusher need?

Enough room to feed the machine and stack the finished product. The RM 70GO! 2.0 is compact, about 24 tonnes and under 8 feet wide, and works in with site traffic management, but it does need clear space to operate and to build the stockpile.

Does crushing on site slow the job down?

Usually the opposite. The crusher arrives on a standard float and is working within about 20 minutes, it runs to your program rather than a haulage schedule, and it cuts the truck movements that often stretch a job out.

What can be crushed on site?

Clean concrete, brick, rock and reclaimed asphalt, with reinforcing steel separated out by the onboard magnet. Mixed or general waste is not suitable for crushing.

26 May 2026 · 6 min read

When on-site concrete crushing beats carting to the tip

For most civil and demolition jobs with concrete to clear, crushing on site costs less than carting it away and buying base back in. Here is how the numbers stack up, when it makes sense, and the few times carting still wins.

Compact RM 70GO! 2.0 crusher mobilised to a site on a standard float

If your project has concrete to clear, you have two options: cart it off to a tip and buy base material back in, or crush it where it sits and reuse it. For most civil and demolition work, crushing on site wins on cost, time and waste. But not always, and being straight about when it does not is part of giving good advice. Here is how to tell which job you have.

The hidden cost of carting away

Carting concrete off site is rarely a single cost. You pay for the trucks, the tipping fees, and then again to import road base or fill to replace what you sent away. Every load is a truck movement, and every movement is time, traffic management and risk on a busy site. Those truck movements also have a habit of stretching the program, because the job waits on haulage that has to share the road with everything else.

What crushing on site changes

A compact mobile crusher like the RM 70GO! 2.0 turns demolition concrete, asphalt and rock into gradable, compactable base on the spot. That changes the maths in four ways:

Less material leaving site, so fewer truck movements and lower tipping fees.
Less material coming in, because the recycled base can be reused as fill and sub-base.
Reinforcing steel liberated and separated from the crushed concrete by the onboard magnet.
A cleaner site and a smaller waste footprint on the job.

The time and safety angle

Cost is the headline, but the program and safety benefits are real too. Fewer truck movements means fewer vehicle interactions on and around the site, less traffic management and less exposure on the road. The crusher works to your program rather than to a haulage schedule, and the product builds up where you need it instead of arriving load by load. On a constrained or staged site, removing dozens of truck trips is sometimes worth as much as the dollar saving.

When it makes sense

On-site crushing suits jobs with a worthwhile volume of clean, hard material: demolition concrete, excavation rock, road planings and asphalt millings. The crusher moves on a standard float and is working within about 20 minutes, so it fits in with the program rather than holding it up. As a rough guide, the more of these you can tick, the stronger the case:

A real volume of material, not a few isolated lumps.
Clean, hard feed: concrete, brick, rock or reclaimed asphalt, not mixed waste.
A use for the recycled product on the same site or a nearby job.
Space to feed the machine and stack the finished base.

When carting can still win

We would rather tell you straight. Carting can still be the better call when the volume is genuinely small, when the material is contaminated or mixed and cannot be cleanly crushed, or when there is simply no room on site to run a crusher and stockpile the product. In those cases the mobilisation does not pay for itself, and a skip or a tip run is the right answer. If your job is one of those, we will say so rather than sell you a crush you do not need.

Run your own numbers

The quickest way to see where your job lands is to put your own tonnage, tip fee and truck-hire figures into our cost calculator. It compares carting away against crushing on site and shows the indicative saving and the truck movements avoided, so you can make the call with real numbers rather than a gut feel.

If you have concrete, asphalt or rock to deal with on a project across South-East Queensland or New South Wales, talk to us about crushing it on site. Call 0401 803 662 or request a quote.

Common questions

When is on-site crushing cheaper than carting concrete to the tip?: On most jobs with a worthwhile volume of clean, hard material. Carting is three costs in one (haulage, tip fees and buying base back in), while crushing on site is a single per-tonne rate and you keep the product. Once all three carting costs are counted, on-site crushing usually wins clearly.
When does carting to the tip still make more sense?: When the volume is genuinely small, when the material is contaminated or mixed and cannot be cleanly crushed, or when there is no room on site to run a crusher and stockpile the product. In those cases a skip or tip run is the better call, and we will tell you so.
How much site space does the crusher need?: Enough room to feed the machine and stack the finished product. The RM 70GO! 2.0 is compact, about 24 tonnes and under 8 feet wide, and works in with site traffic management, but it does need clear space to operate and to build the stockpile.
Does crushing on site slow the job down?: Usually the opposite. The crusher arrives on a standard float and is working within about 20 minutes, it runs to your program rather than a haulage schedule, and it cuts the truck movements that often stretch a job out.
What can be crushed on site?: Clean concrete, brick, rock and reclaimed asphalt, with reinforcing steel separated out by the onboard magnet. Mixed or general waste is not suitable for crushing.