Watershed Materials

Watershed Materials develops technology to produce beautiful, sustainable masonry with less cement using recycled materials. Most masonry products used in construction today - including the ubiquitous cinder block - are made by mixing sand and gravel together with Portland cement, a notorious contributor to global CO2 levels. Limestone must be heated to 2700 degrees fahrenheit to make cement, which uses large amounts of fossil fuels. Add to that the energy required to blast and crush virgin rock into gravel and you have a huge carbon footprint. Watershed Block presents a solution to these environmental problems - a beautiful and versatile masonry unit made of locally-sourced earth and recycled aggregates. Watershed Blocks are manufactured using a proprietary process and activator that actually fuse soil grains and fragments of rock together into a type of sedimentary rock. The result is a rectangular, hollow-celled “industrial stone”, as strong as a concrete block yet with a character, tone, and resonance that expresses local site attributes and adds beauty and depth to architectural designs.

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