The Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) is backing a proposal by Stockwell Sand and Gravel to establish a recycling facility for waste asphalt and concrete on industrial-zoned lands next to its gravel pit in East Porpoise Bay.
The facility would be located on District Lot 1556 and would use the same Allen Road access as the company's gravel pit. The land is zoned industrial-2, which allows for the proposed use.
Stockwell has applied to the Min-istry of Environment (MOE) for facility authorization, but legislation requires the regional district to also authorize the project under its approved solid waste management plan.
In its submission, Stockwell said it plans to collect waste asphalt and concrete from construction and demolition sites, crush it to a road-base material and sell it.
"This prevents developers needing to dispose of their construction waste from having to bury the material or take it to the landfills," the company said.
Stockwell rents and operates a rock crusher four times a year and said that's when the material would be processed.
Maximum volumes to be stored on site would be 1,000 tonnes of asphalt and 500 tonnes of concrete.
"In the last year we've collected 500 tonnes of disposal asphalt and 145 tonnes of disposal concrete," Stockwell's submission said. "From these amounts we can produce the same tonnage of resellable material."
The company said air emissions from the facility would be no higher than what is currently produced from the gravel mine operation.
"They currently have a silica management plan in place for the existing gravel operation and it would apply to this operation as well," Dion Whyte, manager of sustainable services, said during the SCRD's Oct. 5 infrastructure services committee meeting.
Elphinstone director Lorne Lewis said he had always wondered where waste construction materials wound up. "This is a great idea," he said.
"It does appear to be quite consistent with our solid waste management plan," added Gibsons director Gerry Tretick.
The company said it would charge a fee to dispose of the materials and a fee for the recycled product.
"Our company is focused on solutions which are mutually beneficial to the environment and the community as a whole," Stockwell wrote in a follow-up letter to the SCRD. "Any impacts to the environment caused by our operation are addressed by a strict adherence to the Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Mines best practices. With this focus in mind we have cautiously proceeded towards our goal of establishing a Coast-wide central recycling facility."
The SCRD's solid waste management plan monitoring advisory committee recommended support for the project on Sept. 12 and the board passed a formal motion supporting facility authorization on Oct. 11.
The next step in the approval process will be for MOE to decide the level of public consultation needed before it will rule on the proposal.
