Facility boosts recycling efforts

Alberta’s environment minister says a new recycling facility in Rocky View County will help the province reach its goal of recycling more than it throws into the landfill.

BFI Canada opened the waste handling and material recovery facility on Thursday, and Diana McQueen said the facility’s location between two existing plants in Edmonton and Lethbridge will reduce greenhouse gas emissions because recycling trucks from surrounding rural municipalities won’t have to travel as far.

“It’s important in a region like this with so much growth to have a recycling facility here,” McQueen said.

The 122,000-square-foot facility is just north of Glenmore Trail on 100 Street S.E.

With 105 full-time employees, the plant will typically see each day between 100 and 125 metric tonnes of cardboard, paper products, plastics and beverage containers, which is eventually packaged into bales and sold.

Even though the material is mostly sorted by hand, the plant is also equipped with advanced technology and engineering, including a touch-screen control panel and Internet connectivity. It also has a baler that can compress cardboard into a 590-kilogram bale in less than two minutes, said John Abrams, the manager of waste diversion initiatives.

McQueen said having the facility is necessary to handle Albertans’ growing amount of recycling.

“Individually, as we take ownership in our own homes and our own lives to make sure we’re doing the recycling there, we need facilities like this to take that waste stream,” she said.

McQueen said it will help the province move toward its goal to recycle 80 per cent of waste while sending 20 per cent to a landfill. She said the province’s recycling-to-landfill ratios are now around 20 per cent recycling and 80 per cent landfill.