Green-minded builders in Alberta can look forward to soon having more options for tackling waste sustainably. First, Indigenous-owned Calgary Aggregate Recycling Inc. (CAR) has announced the development of a new construction and demolition (C&D) waste recycling plant.
In addition to accepting building materials, the plant will also process contaminated soils, and will be the first in Canada to do so. The soil reuse facility will recycle contaminated and mixed soils, which currently form Alberta’s largest source of hazardous waste by weight, says the company.
They estimate that 3 million tonnes of contaminated soil end up in Alberta landfills every year. CAR’s recycling efforts will turn what’s now a hazardous problem back into a high-value material, a process that will also help lower the emissions associated with the construction industry. CAR says:
“The facility will have the capacity to recycle 600,000 tonnes of excavated construction materials annually, redirect 510,000 tonnes of soil from landfills and reduce GHG emissions in Alberta by an estimated 22,567 tonnes annually, which is a 65 percent reduction to the baseline conventional disposal model.”
The plant will be located at the site of CAR’s current operations in southeast Calgary. It’s scheduled to be operational in the fall of 2022.
New Shingle Recycling Options for Roofers
Meanwhile, Northstar Clean Technologies has received a $200,000 grant from Alberta Innovates to develop their newly announced expanded-capacity asphalt shingle reprocessing facility in Calgary.
Northstar recovers used and discarded asphalt shingles and separates them back into their component parts (liquid asphalt, fiber and aggregates) so they can be reused for industrial applications. The company’s pilot plant in B.C. recently entered production. Calgary was chosen as the site of their first scale-up plant (called the “Calgary Empower Facility”) in March of 2022.
President and CEO of Northstar Aidan Mills says:
“Calgary is home to Canada’s ‘energy transition’ economy and we are excited to be a part of this movement. The reception to our environmental solution to landfill waste has been well received by the municipality, and we look forward to delivering a long-term solution for significantly reducing landfill waste from asphalt shingles in Calgary.”
The funding from Alberta Innovates will go towards the engineering costs of the facility. Roofers and builders can expect the plant to be operational in 2023.
Image credit: Michael Job Loquellano
