Canadian Plastics Industry Association hosts tour of Edmonton, Alberta, facility

The Canadian Plastics Industry Association (CPIA), in partnership with the Alberta Plastics Recycling Association (APRA) and the city of Edmonton, has organized a tour of the Edmonton Waste Management Centre (EWMC) set for Tuesday, September 29, 2015.

The EWMC is one of a few integrated waste management and resource recovery sites in North America. Operations at the centre are expected to increase Edmonton’s residential waste landfill diversion capacity from 60 percent to 90 percent once Enerkem's Waste to Biofuels and Chemicals facility and a new Anaerobic Digestion Facility are fully operational, the CPIA reports.

“Industry and governments are now rightly focused on resource recovery,” says Krista Friesen, CPIA vice president of sustainability. “And there’s no better place to see this new paradigm at work than in Edmonton where there are new and emerging technologies that allow us to convert nonrecycled plastics and biomass into important alternative fuel sources. We have to look at these opportunities to proactively manage residual materials within the context of an integrated system because they’re proof that we can find new uses for nonrecycled plastics while on the road to a zero waste world.”

The tour will provide an up-close look at a number of state-of-the-art facilities, including:

• The Integrated Process and Transfer Facility, with three distinct operations: a waste transfer station; a pre-processing operation; and a refuse-derived fuel (RDF) plant. Waste is mechanically and manually sorted and transferred to an appropriate downstream facility (composting of the organic fractions; recycling of all remaining cardboard, metals and plastics; and creation of a refuse-derived fuel from the nonrecyclable, noncompostable waste stream).
• The Advanced Energy Research Facility is focused on the development of innovative technologies capable of converting residual biomass and other waste feedstocks into a new generation of biofuels and green chemicals, thereby enabling researchers, technology developers, and companies to promote commercialization efforts in these areas.

Enerkem Alberta Biofuels is one of the first commercial facilities in the world to use municipal solid waste (MSW) to produce advanced biofuels and renewable chemicals. The facility utilizes Enerkem’s proprietary technology to convert Edmonton’s nonrecyclable and noncompostable MSW into methanol and ethanol. Enerkem Alberta Biofuels, which was built in partnership with the city of Edmonton, Alberta Innovates – Energy and Environment Solutions and Alberta Energy, can turn 100,000 dry metric tons of MSW into 38 million liters of methanol or ethanol each year, Enerkem says.

In addition to the tour stops, the event will feature expert speakers who will present detailed information on a range of key issues, including:

• Bud Latta, cirector, City of Edmonton Waste Management Services, will provide an overview of the innovations taking place at the EWMC.
• Brian Mills, plant manager at Enerkem Alberta Biofuels, will explain how his facility is able to convert nonrecyclable and noncompostable waste into clean fuels and renewable chemicals to help the City of Edmonton increase its diversion rate from 60 percent to 90 percent.

The CPIA plans to showcase initiatives such as the EWMC to raise awareness about leading-edge waste management technologies—from recycling to solid waste recovery—and show how they can co-exist in an environmentally and economically sustainable way.

“The fact is that plastics are too valuable to waste,” concludes Friesen. “So partnerships with APRA and Edmonton are invaluable in order to demonstrate what can be done to reduce, reuse and recycle this important resource.”

For more information about the tour, visit http://www.plastics.ca/home/events/edmonenergytour.php.