Accepted Materials

HCD accepts both clean wood and painted/treated wood. Wood is repurposed to become the following:

1. Biomass/Hog Fuel
2. Alternative Daily Cover
3. Bio filter

Clean Wood

Clean wood is processed and ground in Goodwood to be either sent for use as biomass or to be manufactured into animal bedding.

The processed material used for animal bedding must meet the agricultural leachate soil guidelines before it can be sold.

Woodchips are sold to small power plants across the province to be used as fuel.

HCD also produces approximately 1,200 tonnes annually of wood to provide bio-filter for facilities such as Miller Waste and Otter Lake.

Pressure Treated Wood/ Creosote Wood

HCD accepts pressure treated wood at 16 Mills Drive, Goodwood and 188 Ross Road, Dartmouth. This material is recycled into an alternative cover material used by MSW landfills. As of July 5, 2023, treated or creosote wood is no longer accepted for disposal at C&D landfills

Un-grindable Wood

Un-grindable wood is wood that HCD receives that has heavy steel and/or other materials attached that is too costly to separate. Examples of this would be wood from airport hangers and older wharves. This small volume of material would get landfilled.

The drywall that arrives at HCD that is pre-sorted or otherwise recoverable is processed and sent to HCD’s Three Corners site. At this facility there is a stationary drywall processing plant which separates the paper portion of the product from the gypsum.

The plant is a stationary slow speed shredder which feeds a trommel screen which was designed to beat the gyprock off the paper and create a ½ inch minus aggregate. The gypsum powder is provided to farmers in the region for use as a soil amendment mainly in blueberries and fruit trees. In the past, HCD has also re-sold the recycled gypsum to wallboard manufacturers to make recycled drywall.

Because over 80% of the drywall that HCD receives is post-consumer drywall, there are often contaminants on the paper portion of the product. The contaminations can range from wallpaper, paint fiber crack filling tape and plastic corner beads. This can make it more expensive to separate the material from gypsum and as such, that material is landfilled. All clean drywall received and processed by HCD is 98% recycled while the remaining 2% is landfilled.

Asphalt shingles/roofing received at our facilities are either initially processed in Goodwood or sent to our facility in Milford where they are initially ground with a slow speed shredder. The initial grind removes any metals or non-grindable material that could cause potential damage to the high-speed grinder.

The high-speed grinder has been designed to remove the aggregate portion of the shingle from the paper portion. In the same process it is transferred by conveyor to a large 40’ x 8’ two-stage trommel screen. The loose aggregate (sand) containing 18-22 percent asphalt bitumen is removed. The next stage removes the loose paper/fibre flake using a specific screen sizing.

The whole process results in a 100 percent recycled product. The overs are reground to the right size while the metal is salvaged and sold locally.

The sand is sold to local paving companies to be used in road building products to replace regular sand and a portion of the new liquid asphalt bitumen. The new asphalt with recycled sand meets all TIR specifications for asphalt use in the province. The flake is sold to the Lafarge cement plant where it replaces approximately 12 percent of the coal they require.

HCD recycles all plastics that are categorized as numbers 1, 2, 4, and 5 under the SPI classification system. These plastic materials range from film plastics, lumber wrapping, paint pails, bottles etc. All of these plastics are separated on HCD’s sorting station or tipping area and then baled. Some of the plastic is diverted through our grinders to make fuel flake that is utilized by LaFarge in their cement kilns.

All aggregates accepted by HCD such as concrete, brick, stone, etc., are recycled and used for road construction and driveways. Aggregates with imbedded steel are crushed to recover the steel.

HCD deals with ferrous and non-ferrous metals in a variety of ways. All metals are sorted and separated on site and when possible, sold to local metal recyclers for maximum recovery and value.

The ferrous and non-ferrous metal is separated from the rest and shipped to markets overseas.

HCD successfully recovers approximately 99 percent of metal from the loads tipped at our facilities. We remove metal from other materials as they are shred or ground. Magnets remove things such as nails, screws, hinges, and door handles. These metals are removed throughout the grinding of the wood, drywall, asphalt shingles and other materials.

These types of plastics are mostly found in siding, windows, and piping. This does not amount to a large volume of material. These plastics cannot be processed into fuel because it creates elevated levels of toxins such as chlorine when burned. This material gets diverted to the daily cover stream and is processed along with the unmarketable wood products. There are markets for this material, but the relatively low volume received by HCD makes these markets infeasible.

HCD receives glass products from several private companies such as breweries and window installers. One hundred precent of this glass gets processed into a septic sand product or an aggregate to be mixed with the asphalt sand in cold mix asphalt. Construction glass gets diverted into our glass recycling stream if it arrives separated at the Goodwood location. If it is not separated it will be mixed in with the daily cover processing. From an occupational health and safety standpoint, there are too many hazards and dangers associated with trying to separate the construction glass from other materials.

HCD diverts new carpet scraps to be mixed in with the plastic shredding to be sent for fuel at the Lafarge cement plant. Post-consumer carpet is traditionally very dirty and can be very abrasive on the chipper knives in the plastic plant. These carpets are mixed in with the daily cover material.

All recoverable cardboard is collected, baled and sent to a local fibre recycler.

There are often new construction loads that arrive at HCD in mixed containers. HCD will pre-sort these loads in the tipping area and then the material is moved to the sorting line. The sorting line will remove all the recoverable material and divert it to the right stream.

Demolition loads are more difficult to process and require more handling to achieve a high rate of recovery. HCD is still able to recover 90% of wood, 99% of film plastic and 95% of the metals in these loads. Mixed loads that contain high percentages of insulation and styrofoam are landfilled. These loads are landfilled because these materials are difficult to handle and may cause health and safety issues if the material becomes airborne.