County eyeing turning trash into energy to reduce carbon footprint

Red Deer County wants to reduce its carbon footprint and is looking at its current method of waste diversion to get that done.

At county council this week, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the County and WastAway Services Canada, one of two companies who responded to a request for proposals sent out in March.

Right now, the County hauls between 22,000 and 25,000 tonnes of waste each year to the Coronation landfill, which is 207 kilometres away, according to Andrew Treu, Environmental Services Manager.

“If we can come up with something better than hauling that far and landfilling, we’d definitely like to do that. But we rely on the professionals and industry to come up with those ideas,” he says.

Treu explains be it months or a year down the road before anything happens. WastAway will first have to return to the County with a better business model on how to get its end product to market.

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WastAway converts municipal garbage into pellets by removing the undesirable materials like glass, metal and concrete. Those pellets can then be sold to market as a ‘sustainable, biogenic fuel that reduces greenhouse gas emissions,’ according to the company’s website.

“Theoretically, at this point, a facility would be built at Horn Hill and the pellet piece would be done on site right there,” Treu adds. “Once that third party or that end-buyer piece comes, the pellets would be transferred from Horn Hill to market somewhere else.”

He goes on to say it’s too early to determine what the financial impact would be if the County ever decided to forge ahead with this kind of project.

“We have over the years looked at different technologies and worked with other companies, but for reasons X-Y-Z, they haven’t worked out,” he says. “We’re fairly progressive that way in that we’re willing to work with companies if they have good ideas, but it has to work for our county residents with little to no risk.”

WastAway Services Canada is based in Sherwood Park and has head offices in Tennessee.