Growth Plan encourages the adoption of a ~Culture of Conservation~ Aggregate operations that are located close to the market provide the most efficient, cost-effective way to receive and reprocess waste construction materials.(Posted Jan2007)
Close to Market - Promotes Recycling Efforts
The Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe encourages the adoption of a “Culture of Conservation” (Section 4.2.4). It calls for municipalities to develop policies and strategies for integrated waste management including1:
Enhanced waste reduction, composting, and recycling initiatives and new opportunities where appropriate
Comprehensive planning for the management of residual waste
Promotion of reuse, recycling and renovation of the built environment
Similarly, the Ontario Provincial Policy Statement (Section 2.5.2.3) says2:
The conservation of mineral aggregate resources should be promoted by making provision for the recovery of these resources , wherever feasible.
The OMNR web site adds3:
The Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) encourages the reduction, reuse, and recycling of aggregate materials. In a 1992 study, it was estimated that recycling contributed up to 5% of the supply of aggregate resources and that approximately 2/3 of economically available material was being utilized at that time.
Recycling and reuse of as much of the available materials as possible makes good sense.
Most recyclable construction aggregate materials need to be blended with virgin aggregate materials in order to be made acceptable for reuse in new construction projects. Hence, the comment from the OMNR referring to the relatively small, overall maximum percentage (7.5%) that recycled materials can economically replace virgin aggregate materials.
Nonetheless, for recycled materials to replace 7.5% of Ontario’s annual consumption of 170 million tonnes of aggregate presents a sizeable contribution to conserving Ontario’s valuable mineral aggregate resources. Reprocessing the waste materials into a usable product usually requires blending them with virgin aggregate. In that respect, locating the recycling operation in an existing aggregate operation provides a readily available source of virgin aggregate without having to transport it to the recycling depot. This makes it economically feasible to recycle a wider range of waste materials.
The construction waste materials that are most commonly recycled are broken concrete in the form of blocks, slabs and paving stones, and broken asphalt pieces. These materials must be crushed and screened in order to be made reuseable. In that regard, aggregate production sites are ideal locations to reprocess the waste because of the availability of crushing and screening equipment.
Aggregate recycling operations also require large stockpiling areas to receive and classify the waste materials and to store the finished products to await shipping. Production and shipping loaders are required as well as weigh scales and ticketing facilities. All of these components are found at existing aggregate operations.
Finally, the location of the recycling facility needs to be close to the market area that generates the waste materials. The price of aggregate is relatively low in comparison to its weight so transport costs form a significant portion of their final delivered cost. The value of waste construction materials as a raw material is even lower than that of virgin aggregate because of the additional costs of sorting and reprocessing the recyclable materials. Contractors will not pay a premium price to haul the waste materials long distances if there is no economic return. If a recycling facility is not located close to the jobsite where the recyclable materials are located, those materials often end up being used as low grade fill on the site or else make their way to landfill sites.
To sum up, aggregate operations that are located close to the market provide the most efficient, cost-effective way to receive and reprocess waste construction materials. Having operations close to market facilitates the recycling of these materials and helps conserve more of our provincial mineral aggregate reserves.
Nelson Aggregate Co. has made a concerted effort to actively recycle waste construction materials at its Burlington quarry for more than two decades. These recycling efforts have diverted thousands of metric tonnes of materials from taking up valuable space in municipal landfills.
Incoming materials are closely monitored to ensure they consist of only approved, recyclable materials. For additional information on Nelson’s recycling efforts please visit our “Recycling” web page.
