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By Alessia Proietti

Reduce, reuse, recycle

Red Deer doesn’t have enough waste for current Waste-to-Energy facility technology, City says

Oct 17, 2023 | 3:54 PM

Starting a Waste-to-Energy (WTE) project in Red Deer may not be worth the investment right now as the city doesn’t produce enough waste, officials say.

At their meeting on Monday, city council heard an assessment from administration of recent developments relating to a new WTE project being considered in central Alberta. Council requested the report during their 2023/24 budget deliberations in November 2022, accepting it as information this week.

The report highlighted research that has been done to assess the feasibility of a WTE Project in Red Deer including historical context, strategic alignment, and risk assessment and analysis. They say thermal treatment of municipal solid waste has been considered since the 1970s.

Administration found that many WTE technologies are considered emerging, meaning they have few or no facilities operating at a commercial scale, and the technologies that are proven, generally require significant volumes and specific types of waste to be viable.

Councillor Lawrence Lee questioned if an estimate of one million people producing 100,000 tonnes of waste would make the project economical. Janet Whitesell, Waste Management Superintendent for the City, said even using that measurement as a ballpark, the City placed 78,000 tonnes in their landfill last year and only some of that would be suitable for a WTE facility.

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She said larger cities like Edmonton and Calgary have more of an opportunity to address their landfill challenges as they have densely populated areas with limited space for waste.

Other communities have shown interest in the central region like the Town of Innisfail, which signed a letter of intent with Varme Energy to develop a WTE facility. That same company also recently gave a presentation to town council in Sylvan Lake.

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However, Red Deer administration says they should wait for companies to develop technology to support smaller centres and prove their environmental effectiveness which is still not fully certain.

In the meantime, both the Environmental Master Plan (EMP) and the Waste Management Master Plan (WMMP) in Red Deer set strategic direction to decrease the amount of waste going to landfill and increase waste diversion opportunities. As neither plan contemplated utilizing WTE to accomplish these goals, administration says the strategic direction set by council was to move focus on the reduce, reuse, and recycle methods; however, they add these are harder to measure.

Regarding waste reduction, the City’s current overall goal is 500 kilograms per capita per year of waste disposal. In 2022, the City disposed 674,000 kilograms per capita and while not achieving their goal, they have decreased since 2014 where the city had 899 kilograms per capita of waste disposed.

Other city initiatives to reuse include the “Kick it to the Curb” event, taking place every month where residents can place their unwanted but usable items at the front of their property with a “free” sign for others to take.

As well, administration shared their excitement for the Alberta government’s Extended Producer Responsibility Regulation. Implemented in November 2022, the legislation aims to hold producers accountable for product packaging and their end-of-life management, reducing the responsibility and burden on municipalities.

Mayor Ken Johnston said while the project may not happen just yet, it is on council’s radar and they will see the item come back to chambers in the future.