Once they dominated the Coldside area but now they lie in disappearing mounds of rubble but they are not going to waste.
Dundee’s two tallest buildings, the Derby Street multis, are being recycled for two major new building projects in the city the redevelopment of the same site and the new Harris Academy.
The 40,000 tonnes of Butterburn and Bucklemaker courts were sent crashing to the ground in controlled explosions in a £2.4 million project last summer.
In a highly specialised operation by demolition experts Safedem, the 22-storey blocks were toppled into the confined space between Derby Street and Strathmartine Road, causing only slight damage to St Martin’s Episcopal Church squeezed into the gap between them.
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In the six months since, the mounds of concrete have been scooped up and poured into a stone crushing machine on site to be recycled as landfill rubble.
The reprocessed material is being used to infill the Derby Street site to make it more attractive to potential developers and is being used in the construction of the new £31m Harris Academy in Perth Road.
Not only is recycling the rubble from Derby Street cost effective, it is a more environmentally-friendly alternative to quarrying fresh stonework from the ground.
A spokesman for the city council said that of the 40,000 tonnes of rubble being crushed on site about 25% to 30% has so far been removed for the school project.
The process will continue but a significant amount will remain at Derby Street to be used in making the surface, which slopes gradually towards Strathmartine Road, more even to make it more attractive to prospective housebuilders.