Unique centre seeks ways to turn trash into treasure
Forget turning water into wine: London researchers want to turn winemaking castoffs such as grape seeds into jet fuel. A unique London-based research network is looking for ways to create useful and valuable products from near-worthless waste — keeping that trash out of landfills at the same time. Politicians gave the thumbs up to the “London Waste to Resources Innovation Centre” — a collaboration between the city, academic researchers and businesses — a few years ago. On Tuesday, London city council will be asked to approve agreements with two new partners, the Canadian Plastics Industry Association and Resource Energy Development Inc. Researchers at this innovation centre are probing how to turn all kinds of leftover materials, everything from tree trimmings to corn husks to waste water treatment sludge into substances that offer value. “There’s nothing like this in Ontario,” said Jay Stanford, the city’s waste boss. “We believe London represents an ideal opportunity, as we sort out our future, to also be basically helping others (in) Ontario, Canada, North America.” The city dump is crawling ever-closer to capacity with only enough room for eight more years of Londoners’ garbage. City staff are studying expansion plans, but it’s not a permanent solution. “Just because we want to expand our landfill site doesn’t mean in the long-term we want to be using it,” Stanford said.
Western University’s Institute for Chemicals and Fuels from Alternative Resources (ICFAR) is a big part of the waste innovation centre.
Franco Berruti, a professor of chemical engineering who heads ICFAR, said researchers are finding innovative ways to transform plastics, woods and other used-up materials into commodities. “Rather than going to the landfill, we really want to see if we can extract value from certain materials,” he said.
Instead of paying to dispose of tomato vines tossed out after ketchup production, or grape skins and seeds leftover after wine making, Berruti and his team are studying how to create bio-oils, biochars and biomass, which can then become jet fuel, renewable power, plywood or even pharmaceutical ingredients. “It’s a fabulous location where they’ve blended academic research and commercialization,” Stanford said of ICFAR. London’s innovation centre currently uses space at the city recycling facility, where there is available land for future demonstration projects. That’s a future goal, if the centre can attract federal and provincial grant dollars to get pilot projects off the ground.