Province invests $4 million in Sarnia company’s innovative recycling project
By Paul Morden, from www.theobserver.ca The Observer
A Sarnia company is getting $4 million from Ontario to help develop a method to recycle plastic packaging that usually ends up in landfill.
The funding for Entropex, from Ontario’s Innovation Demonstration Fund, was announced today. The Sarnia company’s project is expected to create 90 jobs.
Entropex president Keith Bechard said about 50 jobs have been created so far by the demonstration project that began in January 2010 with support from federally-funded Sustainable Development Technology Canada.
It recovers mixed rigid plastics, like clam shell packages and bakery trays, that traditionally “end up in the Blue Box but aren’t part of the Blue Box program,” Bechard said.
They generally make up about 30 to 40% of plastic municipalities collect in Blue Box curbside recycling programs, he said.
“It’s all the stuff people put in their Blue Box that they’re not supposed to.”
Entropex has developed a process to recover those types of plastic so they can recycled.
“It essentially converts what’s waste today back into it’s original use, which was consumer product packaging,” Bechard said.
“It’s fantastic, it really is.”
Bechard said the process Entropex is working on could eventually lead to an 80% increase in plastic recycling in Ontario. “It’s that significant.”
The company has reached about the mid-point of its two and a half year demonstration project, he said.
“We’re taking our pilot plant, which we had operational since August of last year, and extending the infrastructure of that plant to handle more materials at greater volumes.”
Bechard said the aim is to reach commercial scale by August 2012, adding the company will add more jobs as the facility grows.
“Everything is going well, but it is challenging,” he said.
“There are some parts of the process that, when we started, hadn’t been invented yet.”
Bechard said there are “tremendous challenges” in nature of the materials that the process uses to be able to reuse them, but he added, “We are proceeding on track and on budget.”
He added, “We’re acting quickly on this. It’s a persistent waste stream and it needs to be addressed.”
Bechard said Entropex will be the only facility of its kind in North America.
“The best part is what it’s doing for the environment.”
Recycling plastic leads to an 87% reduction in greenhouse gases, Bechard said.
“It takes 13% of the energy to recycle plastic than it does to create it from natural resources.”
It also leads to a significant reduction in the water used to create plastic from raw materials, along with a reduction in landfill space needed when those plastic packages are used again instead of being thrown away, he said.
Observer Article ID# 3157250
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