Vineland-Grodan’s recycled stonewool green roof

Added on 08 December 2023

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Vineland-Grodan’s recycled stonewool green roof

Photo: Vineland

Vineland is a member of the Greenhouse Technology Network (GTN), collaborating with small- and medium-sized organizations to advance the development, adoption and implementation of technologies to support the greenhouse industry. Funding is provided by the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario to increase innovation capacity and grow the Ontario greenhouse industry.

Greenhouse vegetable production uses a variety of growing substrates to allow for consistent growing along with more efficient uses of resources, i.e. water and nutrients. A challenge for the greenhouse industry and its sustainability footprint is how to divert its production waste from landfills; this includes issues with implementation, logistics, costs and product quality.

Grodan, a manufacturer of stone wool, also known as mineral wool used in commercial greenhouse production, recognized the need to expand current reuse opportunities for its products, and to make these recycling opportunities more readily available in North America.

Yianni Monahan, Product Manager, Lifecycle North America at Grodan, began his career in the recycling and waste world. Yianni realized the most effective way to change how a product is handled and treated in the recycling space is to transform the material from a waste where the producer must pay to remove it, into a commodity where the material can be sold into secondary markets.