Tour of Recycling & Energy Recovery Facilities Metro Vancouver, BC - Oct. 6, 2011
Hosted in partnership with:
Covanta Energy
Merlin Plastics Supply Inc.
Urban Impact Recycling Ltd.
Canadian Energy-From-Waste Coalition
Canadian Plastics Industry Association
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Purpose of Tour
Regulations governing the management of packaging and residual waste in British Columbia have dramatically impacted the way businesses and municipalities approach their recycling and disposal responsibilities. With product stewards accountable for 100% of packaging, diversion targets exceeding 75%, and increasing utilization of energy recovery, it is a time of tremendous challenge and opportunity for brand owners, retailers, plastics converters, and municipalities.
This tour is the opportunity to see how leading-edge technologies utilized in the Lower Mainland– including recycling and solid waste energy recovery facilities - handle waste streams in an environmentally sustainable way while potentially reducing costs and leveraging profitability through partnership.
Learnings
All attendees benefited from knowledge gained through this important tour and day-long networking event.
- Product stewards and brand owners can be more effective in their decision-making through better awareness about current and emerging systems/technologies to help manage a very wide spectrum of plastic materials
- Municipalities will better understand what their role could be as partners and/or service providers in the evolving business of integrated waste management
- Converters will see operating systems that may inform their go-forward investments in physical infrastructure and define their relationships with product stewards
- Provincial government officials will witness first hand ‘on the ground’ linkages/impacts between emerging stewardship policies and sustainable economic development, employment and environmentally progressive business operations.
Tour Highlights
Visit #1: A highly automated large scale multi-material recycling facility (MRF) that sorts a full range of plastics and other recyclable materials
Urban Impact Recycling Ltd., 5 Capilano Way, New Westminster, BC V3L 3E3
Established in 1989, Urban Impact Recycling Ltd. specializes in the collection and processing of recyclable material and packaging from both the residential and IC&I sectors. The company operates three sites, including a brand new 40,000 square foot facility in New Westminster. This impressive plant represents the culmination of 10 years of research: the state-of-the-art system is highly automated and utilizes sophisticated technology including a high powered magnet, an air-density separator, a “paper magnet,” an eddy current, a perforator, and the crown jewel of the system: three optical sorting machines that separate different plastics grades. With a throughput on the mixed container line of approximately 15-20 Mt per hour, participants will witness first-hand the current capabilities of the most modern processing technology.
Visit # 2: An award-winning plastics reprocessing facility regrinding and repellitizing a broad range of plastics including PE film and PS foam
Merlin Plastics Supply Inc., 917 Cliveden Avenue, Delta, BC, V3M 5R6
Operating since 1987, Merlin Plastics Supply has grown steadily into one of the largest plastics recyclers on the West Coast. Its success is the product of an outstanding track record of successful innovations and unique approaches to recycling plastics; In 2002, Merlin received a patent for its innovative washing and de-labeling system; in 2006, Merlin Plastics was the first Canadian recycling company to obtain a US Federal Drug Administration Letter of No Objection approval for the use of its reprocessed PET resin in food containers.
This exciting and dynamic plastics preprocessor is constantly striving to broaden the scope of plastics recovery from the waste stream. Merlin Plastics has developed markets and reprocessing techniques that go beyond the HDPE and PP from the municipal programs to include used oil containers from the BC Used Oil Management product stewardship program, beverage containers from the deposit refund system, HDPE, LDPE and LLDPE films and bags from ICI, and return-to-retail programs. Most recently Merlin has developed a market for reprocessed densified Poly Styrene foam from depots and retailers.
Merlin is also processing some residual and non-recyclable waste plastics to make an engineered fuel that has 20% higher BTU value and burns cleaner than coal.
Visit # 3: An award-winning energy- from-waste plant using residual waste streams to produce clean power
Metro Vancouver Energy-from-Waste Facility, 5150 Riverbend Drive, Burnaby, BC, V3N 4V3
Since opening in 1988, Metro Vancouver’s energy-from-waste plant has played an essential role in the region’s solid waste management system. Located in the commercial/industrial area of south Burnaby, this award-winning energy recovery facility is operated and maintained by Covanta Burnaby Renewable Energy Inc. It is responsible for the environmentally safe disposal of over 20% of the region’s waste, each year turning 280,000 tones of garbage into steam and electricity (enough to power 12,300 homes). The plant is one of the cleanest EFW operations of its kind, and is widely recognized as one of the best facilities in North America.
Presentations
Please call or email if you have questions:
Craig Foster, Canadian Plastics Industry Association, Craig Foster & Associates
T. 604-789-8429 E. craigfoster@shaw.ca
