densely populated. Ontario is home to most of the mushroom farms and composting plants in Canada. For many years, these companies have been producing compost and the associated odour nuisance. The combination of a rapidly growing population in Ontario and the ammonia produced by the composters led to mounting protests from local residents. The innovations applied in British Columbia have certainly accelerated the change process at OMF and the company does not expect to be the last compos- ter forced to ‘go indoors’. Further substantial investments in this area seem to be imminent. Let’s take a closer look at the new OMF facility.
Improvements for people and the process
Before the winter 2015-2016 set in, GTL was tasked with constructing a large building to house the indoor plant at the Greenwood site. Greenwood is one of the owners of OMF. Once construction of the building finished - before
the advent of severe winter conditions - work started on constructing eight large bunkers, each with a capacity of 850 tons of phase I compost. Space was created in this massive building to prepare the fermentation process. A wall, with an opening large enough to accommodate the movement of loaders, partitions the bunker hall and the preparation hall. Raw materials such as straw and poultry manure enter the building here. In this hall, a Hoving Holland straw transport line removes the twine, loosens the bales and immerses the straw in water. A significant added benefit alongside mitigating the ammonia odour is that employees at OMF now work in a heated hall handling straw bales that aren’t frozen! Before the changes, employees had to work in extreme winter conditions, where temperatures can plummet to as low as -40 degrees Celsius, engaging in a constant daily battle with the bitter cold and snow. And obviously a process like composting that involves a lot of water does not partner well
The combination of a rapidly
growing popula- tion and the
ammonia produ- ced by the
composters led to mounting protests from local residents.
The air handling system behind the Hoving straw line has been installed to blow warm air from the bunkers into the hall. MUSHROOM BUSINESS 29
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