The City of Edmonton is taking used street sweeping sand and asphalt millings off St. Albert’s hands – and is saving the botanical arts city well over $1-million in the process.
“We have been stockpiling our sanding material for a number of years now because the only way we historically could have got rid of our sanding material was to landfill it,” said Glenn Tompolski, general manager of infrastructure services for the City of St. Albert.
Council delayed a business case for the removal of the street sweeping sand and other items being stored at the Badger Lands for a year during the 2014 budget deliberations.
The project charter noted there was about 35,000 tonnes of stockpiled used street sweeping sand at the site, which would cost about $1.3 million to dispose of due to the special handling required for environmental reasons.
There’s also a stockpile of asphalt millings generated by St. Albert’s overlay program, some of which could have been sold or used but generally was more than the City of St. Albert needs for its own projects.
“We estimated the cost to landfill some of (the sand and millings) and sell some … even with that we were looking at a $1.8-million cost,” Tompolski said.
Tompolski said there have been previous talks with Edmonton about taking the sand. The City of Edmonton has a silicate recycling facility that processes used sand.
“They couldn’t take our product,” Tompolski said. There was too much organic material in St. Albert’s used street sweeping sand because of our numerous boulevards.
“They’ve got to a stage now where their process is good enough to take material from St. Albert,” Tompolski said.
Blair Buchholtz, general supervisor of aggregates and recycling for the City of Edmonton, said they hope to look at removing the street sweeping sand and asphalt millings from the Badger Lands in June.
“In exchange we would also take the asphalt grindings that they have on their hands as well to offset our costs,” Buchholtz said.
Many people don’t realize how much is saved by recycling sand, Buchholtz said.
The Badger Lands clear-out is a one-time occurrence, but both Buchholtz and Tompolski said the hope is to work together in the future.
“It’s a great opportunity for regional partnerships,” Tompolski said.
