Group offers alternative for recyclables

INTEREST GROWING FOR ENERGY-FROM-WASTE FACILITIES

The Chinese import ban on many recyclable materials and low-quality mixed recycling is causing some municipalities to take another look at an ongoing project close to home turning waste into energy.

The Southern Alberta Energy from Waste Association is a non-profit coalition of more than 60 municipalities and waste management jurisdictions in southern Alberta, representing more than 160,000 people in Alberta.

Energy-from-waste facilties often involve burning material at a high temperature and using the energy to create steam which can then be converted to electricity. There are a number of processes which fall under this technology.

Paul Ryan, SAEWA vice-chair, said there is growing interest from municipalities regarding the project, and he is hopeful for interest from the provincial government as well.

“There’s always been a question as to whether energy from waste is better than landfilling,” he said. “In Europe they already know it is. Their recycling actually goes up (with waste-to-energy projects involved) and we propose to do the same thing here.”

Ryan said he saw the current situation coming after travelling to China to see how the global recycling stream was being handled.

At the time, he was told by Chinese officials that at some point China would stop taking low-quality mixed recycling.

He said Chinese interest in improving the quality stream of recyclable materials coupled with North American dependency on Chinese recycling markets created a situation where China was able to enforce demands for higher-quality material.

He has been pushing for an Alberta solution to the recycling issue ever since.

Ryan said in many places where waste-from-energy facilities exist, high-quality materials recycling often takes place alongside it.

“With the SAEWA project, all along, we’ve recognized a modern energy-from-waste facility can produce enough surplus steam for processing plastics and paper recycling,” he said. “It’s one of the spinoffs from these facilities.”

As a result, plastics and paper can be treated on-site using that recycled steam in order to create a much cleaner product.

Earlier this month, the City of Halifax was granted permission to landfill some 300 tonnes of plastic film that is not deemed recyclable. Some of the material was shipped to landfills outside the province due to a ban on recyclable materials in Nova Scotia landfills. That province has since loosened that rule to allow for plastics dumping in the province.

Ryan said that issue could have been avoided with an energy-from-waste facility.

“Wouldn’t it be much better to get something out of (the material) before you put it in a landfill?” he asked. “All along, SAEWA has believed that.”

Ryan foresees some hard questions regarding in-house recycling coming for Canada.

“Right now, you’re seeing all the industrial plastics recyclers scrambling to find other countries to take their plastics,” he said. “And they are going to find those other countries. But it’s only going to last for a short period of time.”

Within three or four years, these other countries could also be taking a similar stance to China, leaving North America back where it started.

“Hopefully SAEWA will be in position by the time that rolls around, so we can have an in-house municipal utility Alberta homegrown solution to a problem that is most certainly not going away,” he said.

While SAEWA has had success in signing on rural municipalities, cities such as Lethbridge and Calgary have balked at the idea of signing on. Ryan said these large municipalities are going to need to take some hard looks at what they are doing with their recycling in the coming years — including the idea of signing on with SAEWA.

“The City of Lethbridge was part of SAEWA until they got permission to expand their landfill,” Ryan said. “The City of Calgary, right now, has a very good recycling program.”

However, opportunities to partner with full-circle recycling facilities, such as the one SAEWA is planning, are going to need to be revisited.

“You will be able to recycle your plastic to a product that is acceptable to the injection molding market,” he said.

“I think they have no choice but to look at it as an option. If not now, we’re just going to go back to filling up landfills full of material that’s got a lot of calories in it to create energy, and the ability to recycle if you had the right infrastructure.

“Sooner or later we’re just going to have to realize that everything can’t be recycled, and there’s just no such thing as ‘zero waste,’ and just start following the lead of mature countries in Europe who have already tried different solutions and come up with this.”

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