Edmonton's waste-management systems turn trash into cash

There aren’t many gold coins hidden among the ripped T-shirts, rotten eggs, broken plywood and other junk people throw away, but sorting, selling, composting and recycling the useful bits is expected to put more than $6.4 million into city coffers this year.

While that’s a fraction of the $145-million budget to run Edmonton’s waste-management system, the money helps offset the cost of a fee-based utility operated without property taxes.

“If not for these revenue sources, the money would have to be recovered from the monthly fees, so they would be higher,” says Bud Latta, director of processing and disposal for waste management services.

The biggest money-spinner for local garbage gurus is selling the paper, glass, plastic, metal and other recyclable items that pass through the materials recovery facility in Clover Bar.

The facility is run for a per-tonne fee by Waste Management of Canada, which markets the cleaned and sorted products nationally and ­internationally.

While these sales are budgeted to bring in $4.4 million in 2011 — one-quarter of that amount goes to Waste Management — the market fluctuates drastically, says Jim Schubert, general supervisor of conversion technologies.

“The recession hit everybody, including us, in a big way. Back in 2009 … that $4.4 million was $1.9 million,” he says.

“The recycling markets didn’t need all this recycling stuff, so they paid virtually nothing for it. For old high-grade newspaper, we (now) get $130 a tonne, but for a short time we had to pay companies to take it.”

Paper and cardboard make up about 85 per cent of the roughly 50,000 tonnes of material processed annually, Schubert says.

“Newspaper is about 70 per cent of the incoming stream. We couldn’t store it. Within a week’s time, our facility (would be) full of newspaper.”

Aluminum, which accounts for less than one per cent of the recycling waste, has taken an even bigger jump, to about $1,000 a tonne from virtually worthless two years ago.

Used paper and metal aren’t the only products people want to buy. About 30,000 tonnes of rich black dirt pumped out by the composter composter is expected to sell for $750,000 this year.

Although most of that goes out by the truckload to such customers as farmers, landscapers and reclamation companies, individual 30-litre bags of Second Nature brand are being test-marketed at several garden stores, Latta says.

A major new recycling focus is the mixed construction and demolition waste processing operation, scheduled to open by the end of the month.

Jumbled loads of concrete and asphalt, lumber and tree branches, shingles, drywall, cardboard and carpet mainly now wind up in the landfill.

But a $4.3-million plant at the waste management centre will soon be able to shake, blow, and mechanically or manually separate mounds of junk sent from construction sites so it can be reused.

Wood, the largest category, is ground up to add bulk and carbon to composting sewage sludge; crushed concrete is a good road base, and cardboard is an ingredient in shingles made by an Edmonton company.

“One of the big factors for us in making this a profitable operation is being able to divert as much material as possible from landfill,” Latta says.

The goal is to double the amount of mixed construction and demolition waste they receive to 85,000 tonnes annually by 2014, creating a profit of $1.4 million.

Approximately 90 per cent of that year’s anticipated $6.3 million revenue from the plan will be tipping fees, or the charge to drop off waste.

The remaining revenue is actually savings from using this processed material in various city operations rather than buying it from outside sources.

Although the province backed away from laws forcing builders to recycle much of their debris, this market is expected to grow as local landfills close, disposal fees rise and companies pay more attention to green issues, a city report says.

“There’s quite an appetite in the industry … in being able to recycle some of their waste stream,” Latta says.

“Even though the legislation went away, we decided to go ahead anyway. We believe there’s enough (material).”

The city has also started hauling commercial waste.

Edmonton’s focus on reducing the amount of junk stuck in the ground produces more benefits than saving money and helping the environment — Capital Power will pay about $2.3 million in 2011 through the provincial carbon offset credit program.

Composting will save 93,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases that would otherwise be produced by garbage rotting in a landfill, while wells will collect the equivalent of 180,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide at the closed Clover Bar site.

The captured methane fuels Capital Power’s nearby 4.8-megawatt generating station, producing enough electricity for 4,600 homes annually.

At the same time, Edmonton is one of six partners in the Edmonton Waste Management Centre of Excellence, which provides experts and research space in the field of solid waste and sewage.

About half the non-profit organization’s $6 million in annual revenue comes from providing professional services, executive manager Daryl McCartney says.

“You can’t do it for free. Someone has to pay for it … we need revenue, there’s no doubt.”

Their services involve research, technology development, education and training, and consulting.

Projects range from a company that flew over the landfill with a helicopter to test a device for measuring escaping methane, to a client developing equipment to dry sewage sludge, McCartney says.

“Researchers will come back to us because they need access to the waste water or the solid waste.”

They set up a four-day training program for Mongolian municipal managers and facility operators, taught Nunavut municipal landfill operators about handling hazardous waste and worked for Calgary, Red Deer and Winnipeg.

The other half of their revenue comes from Edmonton’s winter street sand recycling program, which cleans and reuses almost 90 per cent of the abrasives swept up by the city each spring.

This effort saves taxpayers an estimated $5 million a year through reduced truck travel and sand purchases, as well as by reducing what goes to the landfill.

Clover Bar is also home to the Global Electric and Electronic Processing Inc. (GEEP) facility, which annually handles more than 30,000 tonnes of old computers, televisions and other electronic waste for recycling.

The company is expected to provide the city with $173,000 in lease and other revenue this year.

Greys Paper Recycling Industries Ltd. is building a domed facility in the area to recycle office paper and glass, projected to give the city about $600,000 in revenue when it starts operating in 2012.

In the decades when the 233-hectare waste management centre was mainly a landfill, it had only about 30 employees, Jim Schubert says.

Approximately 300 people in various operations have positions there today, and that workforce could climb as high as 450 once new ­facilities come on stream, he says.

“Doing something with waste does definitely generate jobs, from engineers to mechanics … it’s not just low-end jobs.”