Landfill life extended 15 years with $50K purchase

Spending just $50,000 on new equipment for the Summerland landfill is expected to free up $17 million worth of extra space for trash, council heard Monday.

The expense, which was approved unanimously, will allow staff to buy a set of flat, metal panels similar in design to a garage door that can be placed each night on the active face of the landfill.

That will eliminate the need for the sites operator to spread 15 centimetres of clean fill over the new garbage each night as required by the B.C. government, according to Candace Pilling, the District of Summerlands manager of environmental services.

The daily cover is required to keep birds, bears and wind away from the garbage, she explained, but it also takes up valuable space in the dump.

According to Pilling, the space that will be saved by the steel panels replacing fill will be enough to extend the life of the landfill from 2068 to 2083 by freeing up room for an extra 157,000 metric tonnes of trash, which would attract tipping fees of $17.2 million at todays rate.

The steel panels, which are two metres wide and 10 metres long, were originally scheduled for purchase in 2023, but Pilling recommended council make the purchase as soon as possible.

Manufactured in Revelstoke, the panels are known as the Iron Grizzly Alternate Daily Cover System.

Link:
Landfill getting 15-year life extension with new cover system - pentictonherald.ca

Comments are closed.