In Edmonton, Canada, the waste is the same as at municipal waste plants around the world — shoes, sofas and other items that can’t be recycled and are destined for landfills or incinerators — but the fate that awaits Alberta’s garbage is different: as of this month, it’s being turned into biofuels.
“We use heat and pressure to break down the materials that usually end up in the landfill”, explains Vincent Chornet, chief executive of Enerkem, the company behind the technology.
“We then turn it into methanol and ethanol. In total, the process from waste to final product takes about four minutes.” Enerkem’s technology produces renewable electricity, chemicals for plastic and of course, ethanol for cars.
“Waste is now an opportunity.” Montreal-based Enerkem’s contract with the city of Edmonton includes treatment of 100,000 tonnes of garbage annually for 25 years. That, reports Enerkem, will yield 138m litres of ethanol per year, enough to fuel 400,000 cars driving on a 5 per cent ethanol blend.
Sweden is a leading practitioner of the fast-growing sector of garbage to energy. According to reports, environmentally-friendly energy from garbage heats 810,000 Swedish households.
Not only that: the lowly rubbish also produces enough electricity for 240,000 Swedish family homes. That’s the equivalent of more than 1m litres of oil per year.
The average Swede produces 237.6kg of non-recyclable garbage each year, according to the association, of which 49 per cent is burned and used as energy.
But that’s not enough. Sweden’s rubbish to energy market is so hot that the country’s 30 rubbish-based power plants have to import waste from other countries, including Britain!
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