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ARTICLE · 11 JULY 2012

Why Should MOE Encourage Soil Banking?

Why should the Ministry of the Environment encourage soil banking (stockpiling surplus soil for reuse), instead of labelling excess soil as "waste"?

CanadaEnvironment

Why should the Ministry of the Environment encourage soil banking (stockpiling surplus soil for reuse), instead of labelling excess soil as "waste"? Guelph's Laird Road / Hanlon Expressway interchange project is a good example of the many environmental and economic benefits from soil reuse. According to an editorial in the Guelph Mercury:

"The story of how 230,000 cubic metres of recycled fill came to be headed for the new roadway interchange at Laird Road and Hanlon Expressway is a good one...Kudos to the City of Guelph and Ministry of Transportation officials for making this come about.

To salvage and locally store surplus fill from 34 different Guelph road jobs over the last three years has prevented enormous waste, hauling expenses and a loss of a valuable road-building material. Were it not saved and stored locally, the same huge volume of material would have had to come from much farther away and most likely from an extractive quarrying operation.

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