The Mountain View Regional Waste Management Commission has signed a five-year supply agreement with Airdrie's Durham Energy Recovery for that company to turn the plastic collected by the commission into diesel fuel.
The commission sent its first shipment of 17.5 tonnes of plastic to Airdrie on Jan. 16. The commission estimates it could send as much as 200 tonnes of all non-deposit plastics to Durham per year, saving tipping fees at the landfill.
All plastics that aren't taken to a recycling centre for refund, such as grocery bags, shampoo bottles and agricultural plastic, will be sent to Durham.
The company estimates it could manufacture 260,000 litres of diesel fuel per year from the product it gets from the commission.
The commission will be the first waste organization to recycle its plastic into a fuel.
“This is an extremely wise system to be involved in,” said Al Graham, the waste commission's chief administrative officer.
“For us, we now have a product that we know that the world needs to have and it's come on the back of what we've always been told was a dead end. We are now part of something that future waste commissions have to be (part of).”
Durham will start construction on a plant to convert the plastic to diesel fuel soon and plans to have it up and running by spring 2015.
Peter Brown, Durham's president, said the plant will also take material from other suppliers and use it to make a fuel to run the plant while a carbon solid will also be made that can be used in tire manufacturing or road construction.
The plant will be about 900 square metres, plus about two hectares for storage of plastics.
Brown couldn't discuss the details of how the plastic would be converted to the end products. He did say, however, it won't be incinerated.
“It's kind of proprietary knowledge so we can't discuss that,” he said. “The plastic that we're looking at, if we don't deal with it, it will be landfilled. We're not interfering with any processes that are already in place like milk jugs.”
The commission won't be making any money from the partnership, but it will save the space plastic took up at transfer sites and the landfill.
“We know the problems we're having with these grocery bags (for example). We'll alleviate that,” Graham said.
The partnership happened after a serendipitous encounter Graham had with Brown's brother, Keith, who is a farmer near Water Valley. While on a visit to the Water Valley transfer station, Graham met Keith and started talking to him about recycling used oil.
Later, in September 2013, Peter began talking with Graham about potentially solving the waste commission's dilemma of what to do with all the commission's baled and stored plastic.
Graham estimated the commission could send a shipment of plastic to Durham on a monthly basis and perhaps more if the waste commission collects more volume.
"It absolutely positions us to be a leader of the three Rs. This is an extremely wise system to be involved in."Al GrahamCAOMVRWMC
