Ag on i t c Se INSI
DE!
Your LOCAL Media since 1918! Volume 105 Issue 31
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Wednesday, April 5, 2023 s
$3 million spread across Beaver County by Claystone BY JOHN MATHER Claystone Waste Ltd., distributed $3 million in dividends to its shareholder municipalities last week. “Claystone is a community-owned and community-focused enterprise, and we are proud to provide our shareholding municipalities with more revenue to support local priorities across the Beaver region,” said Chair of Claystone Waste’s Board of Directors, Meryl Whittaker. “Through the municipal dividend, Claystone is not only supporting the region’s public services but helping to create more local jobs and drive economic development and investment in the region.” The dividends can be used by the municipalities to support infrastructure,
community programming, economic development initiatives, and other priorities of municipal councils that would otherwise have to be funded by local taxpayers. The $3 million dividend works out to approximately $300 per capita in the Beaver region in 2023. Beaver County picked up the lion’s share of the dividend with the largest population receiving $1,407,106. Tofield received $620,758; Viking received $402,773; Ryley received $299,580; and Holden received $269,582. Since 2015, Claystone has given more than $25 million back to the local communities through various forms of support including dividends, grants, sponsorships and other forms of community partnerships.
Claystone developing new compost program BY JOHN MATHER Claystone Waste Ltd, is busy developing a composting operation, which it is planning to open later this year. John Paul, a soil scientist and compost designer, and owner of Transform Compost Systems, is contracting with Claystone to establish the new facility which will be located just south of the main offices at the Ryley landfill site. “There are three to four steps to the composting procedure,” explained Paul during the Claystone public open house Mar. 26. “First we receive the material and then we have to blend it together.”
He explains composting is similar to baking a cake in that you have to mix the right amount of ingredients to make the process work. “You need to have the right amount of moisture, and the right amount of air space,” he said. If it’s household waste, which is being blended into compost, Paul said it would be 70 to 80 per cent moisture content. He said it would then be blended with wood chips to bring that content down to a more desirable level by creating air space. “Aerobic microbes do the actual composting,” stated Paul. “Like humans, they breathe in oxygen and expel car-
Soil scientist John Paul tracks the flow chart of composting procedures during the Claystone Waste Ltd. public open house Mar. 26. Paul is in charge of developing Claystone’s new composting facility which is slated to open later this year. bon dioxide. If we don’t have the right mix and keep the microbes happy then they go anaerobic.” He said when that happens, the microbes use other ways to survive and one of the respiratory routes creates odours. “So you want the right mix to prevent this,” Paul explained. “You want to make the blend the one the microbes need. As compost operators, you have to make sure you have the right mix to keep the microbes happy. “You either keep them happy or they’re going to frustrate you by giving
off strong odours which we don’t want.” He said at the site, operators will try to keep the household waste and yard waste separate and then blend it accordingly, but some municipalities blend it together before it gets to the composting site and then the operator has to measure it and take moisture samples to double check its quality. He added the Alberta Code of Practices does require that the landfill does testing on all loads coming into the landfill to go into the compost pile. Continued on Page 16
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