NEWS 2005

Posted December 08, 2005

Event December 13, 2005

Winter Street Sand Recycling Project

Hugh Donovan, P.Eng. - City of Edmonton, Transportation and Streets Department

One of the main challenges facing Canadian cities is the maintenance of their roadway systems to provide safe winter driving conditions. In Edmonton, more than 165,000 tonnes of sand and salt are applied annually to the city's roads. In the past, almost all of these materials were swept up in the spring and disposed of in a landfill. In 2003, the City of Edmonton Transportation and Streets Department and the Edmonton Waste Management Center of Excellence formed a partnership to investigate the feasibility of recycling street sweepings. The winter street sand recycling pilot project, partially funded by a grant from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Green Fund, had dramatic results. The pilot project was able to recover and recycle 80% of the collected street sweepings for re-use as winter street sand. The Winter Street Sand Recycling Program has proven to be an innovative and unique approach to the handling of contaminated winter street sand. It is believed that this type of recycling initiative has never been undertaken on a production scale. Most municipalities, with their existing infrastructure and activities, should be readily able to duplicate the City of Edmonton's success.

About the speaker: Mr. Donovan graduated from the University of Alberta with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Civil Engineering in 1977 and has since worked in the design, contracting and supervision of roadway related projects. Mr. Donovan spent eight years with Hardy Associates (1978) Ltd. as a Materials/Geotechnical Engineer dealing with inspection, testing and failure analysis relating to construction materials. This was followed by four years with Lafarge Construction Materials as the Manager of Technical Services and marketing dealing with all aspects of the production, lay down and marketing of materials relating to roadway construction. Since then, he's been with the City of Edmonton: as a Construction Supervisor for roadway projects, and as Construction Services Engineer dealing with construction specifications, roadway structural pavement designs, and research into new and innovative construction materials and processes as well as management of the City of Edmonton Quality Assurance Testing Laboratory

Location: Royal Glenora Club - Glenrose Room
Time: Registration 11:45 p.m., Lunch Starts at 12:00 p.m.
Date: Tuesday December 13, 2005
Cost: Students: $10, GSE Members: $15, Non-members: $20
Register: Space limited. Please confirm your attendance by noon of Monday Dec 12 by following this link or emailing rclementino@thurber.ca