Mayor touts 'sustainability efforts' for demolition of former Foodland

The demolition of the former Foodland building in the Town of the Blue Mountains (TBM) was conducted with sustainability in mind, says the mayor.

“When we tendered this project, that's one of the reasons we selected the company we did, because they have an excellent track record of repurposing material from building demos,” said Alar Soever, mayor of TBM.

TBM officially began removing the former Foodland building that was located at 171 King Street East in Thornbury in early August.

The site will be the future home attainable housing units built by the Blue Mountains Attainable Housing Corporation (BMAHC).

According to Soever, in the demolition process, approximately 80 to 90 per cent of the materials from the former Foodland building were recovered  – steel beams were sold for scrap metal and concrete materials were crushed to create gravel.

“The concrete blocks were ground up and are now in piles of gravel. That gravel will be used by the town for surfacing parking lots and things like that,” he said.

Soever says the decision to reuse these materials was a “no-brainer.”

“We want to be sustainable and there's no reason not to do it. It makes sense from an environmental point of view. It also makes sense from an economic point of view,” he added.

Another motivation in repurposing the construction materials is to avoid putting mixed loads into the town’s landfill.

Construction materials have been known to cause problems once they reach the landfill. For example, drywall, which is a source of sulfur and can create issues in the leachate that comes out of the bottom of the landfill.

“We encourage all builders in the area to do the same, we don't want these mixed loads of material in our landfill. Especially when a lot of material from a lot of these buildings can be repurposed,” Soever added.