Milestones Building & Design

Location: St. John, New Brunswick
Building Size: 120' wide by 60' long, and 3 each 80' wide by 180' long Waste Management Fabric Covered Buildings
Application: Waste Management, Composting and Recycling

This Waste Management System consists of the recycling and composting processes which are contained in 4 fabric buildings. The peak design fabric buildings are positioned on a 4' thick by 5' high push wall foundation that provides a tremendous open-span work environment for the machine operators and the 26' tall elevated conveyor system. "These fabric buildings are the right buildings for the waste management industry," says Chris Harned, Waste Diversion Supervisor.

Crane Mountain Landfill is located in the Fundy Region of New Brunswick, Canada. The landfill employs 33 people and offers a recycling depot program and community composting program that is equipped with the most advanced environmental protection technology available in the solid waste industry. "It's a $42 million dollar investment that is owned and operated by the Fundy Region Solid Waste Commission," says Chris Harned, Waste Diversion Supervisor. "Our recycling and composting program is a total voluntary program that serves 125,000 people in seven different municipalities."

During construction of the concrete, trenches were molded into the floor to create positive aeration upwards from the floor for very dense product. Each fabric covered building has protective equipment, respirators, air exchange systems and special bio-filters to protect workers and control odor. "We chose fabric buildings for a number of reasons; this is a very acidic process and extremely harsh environment, the fabric of the buildings is not affected by the corrosive environment and the steel tube framing requires minimal maintenance.

The 'Receiving Hall' is housed in a 120' wide x 60' long fabric building. The organic materials are dropped on the floor where large contaminants are pulled during a preliminary search. A pay-loader loads the organic materials into an in-feed hopper and transports the materials through a sorting line to hand pick contaminants. A high power electro magnet is also utilized to further remove contaminants prior to the organic materials hitting the shredder. A conveyor transports the sorted organics to compost halls to allow the 70 day thermo-fellic process to kill pathogenic organisms and for vector reduction.

Two more 80' x 180' fabric covered buildings are used for compost halls. Machine operators move and mix carbon amendments into the organic product to control C-N ratios (carbon to nitrogen). Once a stockpile is mixed, an operator forms the stockpile into a compost windrow. Quality control personnel monitor temperature, moisture and oxygen levels within each of the eight 14' x 60' compost windrows. Each windrow is allowed 40 days to process before it is moved to the second compost hall.

Fundy Region Solid Waste Commission 2