Uploaded on 2014-12-09 by ppx

In France, the main construction material is concrete. This material is very heavy. Even the city consume more foods and other goods than construction material (fortunatly !), the volume of cement and aggregate to make concrete for the construction is huge ! In the example of the city of Paris (which is, for the inner city, a small city with very few construction works in comparison to the rest of the region and, of course, the rest of the world), transport of the aggregate and cement is a daily challenge. Even more, the quarries around Paris are running down, and we have to go further and further to find aggregate. The way is to use the river and barges to transport it. But now the competition is for the use of the river banks... people would prefer enjoy and stroll along the river than to have a plant instead. Hybrid solution is coming. For the little history, before the age of concrete, Paris was used to use gypsum directly extract from underground quarries (it exists a large network of quarries underneath the city, it's forbidden to frequent it but many enthusiasts enjoy this atmosphere) and overground quarries which has been transform in park. Some interesting photos : ![The quarry before the Buttes Chaumont park][2] (from the website http://docteur-jeje.blogspot.fr) ![The bridge still there !][3] ![and the park][4] [1]: https://edxuploads.s3.amazonaws.com/14181462098006844.jpg [2]: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_j3ZOZaS4JYM/TOuvkWCDJeI/AAAAAAAABf8/XPpEL1WKJDo/s1600/9.JPG [3]: http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/44/b5/5c/44b55c426eb3629023d991488c39e5f8.jpg [4]: http://www.daretry.com/files/Parc_des_Buttes_Chaumont.jpg