Maple Reinders Constructors Ltd. has lent the city of Hamilton a helping hand in achieving its aggressive target of diverting 65 per cent of its waste from landfills by 2008 by designing and constructing a new centralized composting facility.
Environment
Maple Reinders Constructors Ltd. has lent the city of Hamilton a helping hand in achieving its aggressive target of diverting 65 per cent of its waste from landfills by 2008 by designing and constructing a new centralized composting facility.
Teaming up with Dutch compost specialists, the Mississauga-based company introduced a state-of-the-art, in-tunnel compost process. Marketable compost is produced in 10 weeks.
“This design-build-operate project was the first time that this type of technology was applied at this scale in Canada,” says John Haanstra, senior vice-president of environmental development at Maple Reinders Group Ltd.
The company received the Canadian Construction Association’s 2006 environmental achievement award for its work on the $30.7 million project.
Last June, Maple Reinders commenced operations of the facility.
The project was constructed through a partnership between the city and Maple Reinders, a Canadian-owned group of companies.
Located on a former brownfield site, the project has transformed more than eight hectares of industrial land into a model eco-friendly facility.
The fully enclosed facility is capable of processing 60,000 tonnes of organic waste per year.
A series of sealed concrete tunnels contain the aerated piles of organic waste collected by the city’s new green and white co-collection trucks.
This waste is broken down by bacteria in an aerobic environment in the sealed tunnels.
The amount of oxygen, heat and moisture is controlled. As a result, the organic waste breaks down into finished compost “much quicker than it would by itself or in a landfill,” the city said in a backgrounder.
The building operates under negative pressure. Air is treated through a biofilter system that prevents odours from leaving the site.
A section at the front includes administrative offices and an education room.
At the awards breakfast, Haanstra said importing technology and applying it to local conditions and requirements “takes much communication, overcoming language barriers and differences in standards, transfer of knowledge, and a lot of perseverance and skill.”
The technology provider was Christiaens Group of the Netherlands.
"The whole facility works together to become a process."
John Haanstra
Maple Reinders Group Ltd.
“Constructing a compost plant is not simply building a structure,” said Haanstra, whose firm celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. “The whole facility works together to become a process.
“The concrete compost vessels, for instance, form an integral part of the compost process.”
Haanstra, whose firm won the CCA’s environmental achievement award in 2004 for its work on a Jasper wastewater treatment plant, said the operational component was key in delivery of the project.
“That meant that the operators played a major role in the design development,” he said. “This can also be a major advantage since it brings the designers, builders, operators and owner together to develop a design that meets the concerns of the project stakeholders.”
Maple Reinders’ other partners in the venture are Aim Waste Management and the Van Kaathoven Group. Design consultants were Associated Engineering.
Incorporation of the partnering process was another important element of the project, Haanstra told delegates attending the CCA’s 89th annual conference.
He said design-build-operate projects can be difficult to manage, given that a lot of issues need to be negotiated during the design and construction process.
“This can lead to disagreement, resulting in negative relationships between project team members. We were able to overcome this by establishing the rules for working together through a partnering workshop, before the project started.
“We maintained the partnering concept during the project delivery period by having meetings every six weeks to discuss the relationships among the project team, to celebrate our accomplishments and to find solutions for the challenges lying ahead.
“This approach really worked well. We ended up with a project that was on budget and on time and that met the expectations of both the owner and operator.”
Maple Reinders, its Dutch partners and the city of Hamilton recently received a partnership award from the Ontario Waste Management Association and the Consulate General of the Netherlands for their efforts.
Recent Comments
comments for this post are closed