The Didsbury regional landfill recently used a massive shingle shredder to process about 4,000 short tons of shingles collected over the past two years.
The $260,000 project saw the shredder brought to the landfill by Penner Waste Inc. of Manitoba. Work started on March 14 and wrapped up last week.
Mountain View Regional Waste Management Commission (MVRWMC) operates the landfill. CAO Pat Sadlowski says bringing the shredder has resulted in real cost saving.
“This is the first time this person has been out here and it's the cheapest process we could find,” said Sadlowski. “This is the first time since 2012 that we were actually able to get someone to process shingles at our site for this price.
“It was way cheaper than having to haul them into Calgary and pay a tipping fee as well.”
The shingles themselves were collected across Mountain View County.
“There are contractors that bring them,” he said. “When someone does a roof, for example, they are able to keep the shingle material all nice and clean so that this shedder can shred them down to three-quarter minus (the size of the soil-like material). The machine can also remove the nails from the shredder.”
The resulting gravel, size pieces can be used for several things, he said.
“We are able to use it either for road maintenance (at the landfill) instead of gravel, or there will be option of selling this product to our member municipalities.
“It's a fantastic product. I've shown it around to the municipalities and they are impressed with it as well. It's not going back in the landfill and it's going to cut down on the amount of gravel we have to pay for.”
A further 4,000 tons of shingles remains at the site.
“We will continue to put money in the budget and collect the fees that we charge for people to bring it in,” he said. “That is how we manage to pay for this processor.
“In the future as we collect more fees we will be able to bring him back next year to hopefully do the other half of the pile. By then it will be bigger again.”
The MVRWMC is made up of representatives from the municipalities in Mountain View County.
"It was way cheaper than having to haul them into Calgary and pay a tipping fee as well."Pat SadlowskiCAO of MVRWMC
