FAIRBORN — Fairborn Cement Company, formerly known as CEMEX, is providing a hand in saving pollinators.
It received a grant in 2016, allowing the company to plant 30 acres of wildflowers, which are expected to bloom tenfold in the coming months.
“It’s a very good end-use for the land,” Quality Control Manager Rusty Strader said. “This is all reclaimed quarries, so this is a very good use — it’s good for the environment.”
This year, the company set aside a plot specifically aimed to attract monarch butterflies, which is set on a 10-year-old reclaimed quarry. Some Fairborn Cement Company employees volunteered a hand April 21 to scatter seeds across the plot to ultimately sprout future monarch butterfly nutrients. Saving pollinators has been a plant-wide effort, involving various departments across the company such as the quarry crew and plant officials, among others, according to Strader.
“Eventually we’ll turn this into a land-learning lab,” Strader said of the pollinator-friendly area. “Community members, we hope in the future, to get them back here, and the [school] kids. Buses could get back here easily.”
CEMEX was sold to Eagle Materials Inc. in February this year for approximately $400 million. Fairborn Cement Company is now a subsidiary of Eagle Materials Inc.