St. Marys invests $120,000 to turn road waste into reusable construction material

By Galen Simmons

St. Marys council has approved $120,000 in additional capital funding to recycle stockpiled asphalt and concrete into reusable construction material, a move staff say will save money, improve operations and reduce the municipality’s environmental footprint.

At its July 21 meeting, council approved amending the 2026 capital plan by moving forward a project originally scheduled for 2027. The funding includes $80,000 from the town’s road reserve and $40,000 from the water reserve to process waste asphalt and concrete into certified Granular A material for future municipal construction projects.

Director of public works Jed Kelly told council the town periodically grinds waste asphalt and concrete stockpiled at the municipal operations centre into aggregate used for road, sidewalk and other infrastructure projects.

“In a nutshell, we basically take all that waste material that we receive and we process it into a gravel,” Kelly said. “We get the A gravel tested, so it is a certified gravel. We can produce it for about 30 per cent of what it costs to mine virgin material and get it on site.”

According to Kelly’s report, recycling the material costs roughly 60 per cent less than purchasing new aggregate from a pit while also reducing hauling distances and keeping construction material out of landfills.

Though the town has enough processed Granular A to meet its immediate construction needs, Kelly said the stockpile of unprocessed concrete and asphalt has reached capacity following major projects, including the West Quarry rehabilitation and Ontario Street South reconstruction.

If the material is not processed this fall, he said it will begin encroaching on the operations centre’s seasonal snow-storage area.

“We’d like to move ahead, crush it this fall and then have the area clear for snow in the winter,” Kelly said.

Coun. Jim Craigmile supported advancing the project by a year, noting more material will be generated as work continues on Ontario Street.

Kelly agreed.

“I don’t think we envisioned the amount of concrete that we took out of the old quarry project,” he said. “We’ll have a lot more coming in when Ontario Street gets processed.”

Kelly also emphasized the environmental benefits of the program, describing it as an example of sustainable infrastructure management.

“It is kind of a green program,” he said. “You talk about green lenses; it’s something that we can recycle indefinitely. It provides a short haul route for the contractor, so you’re not burning all kinds of diesel taking it to another site and then bringing it back on site.

“It doesn’t really sound that green, but in my opinion, it’s pretty green.”

Staff expect the recycled aggregate will continue to support municipal infrastructure projects while restoring capacity at the operations yard before winter snow-storage operations begin.