STERLING – Illinois Rock Tech now has a permanent place to call home.

Roberta Witmer, 64, and her husband Dan, 65, run the mobile concrete and debris recycling business.

For the past 3 years, they’ve rented land from Rock River Cartage on Galt Road in Sterling. In November, they bought the empty lot, zoned for heavy industrial use, at 2401 W. Fourth St., a former Propheter Construction site.

“We knew that old location was temporary,” Roberta said. “We saw the industrial site and we bought it.”

The Witmers, who also farm, have a portable machine that they haul to sites where they crush concrete and asphalt into aggregate that can be used as road base material, in driveways and under new buildings. Crushed asphalt also contains oils that can be used for blacktops and new roads, among other things.

“This is for anyone who wants to get rid of old concrete, so we don’t have piles of it going into lakes and streams,” Roberta said. “We will work it down to usable size, and it can be used again as an underlayment.”

They plan to store their machine on site, and set up an office to “serve as our home base,” she said.

Because of the zoning, they also can crush rock there.

Call 815-631-7070 for more information.