Construction underway at Orgaworld Canada biomethane plant
Construction of North America’s first closed-loop fully-integrated organics waste management system is underway at the Orgaworld Surrey site in the city of Surrey, British Columbia, Canada.
The construction began earlier this year on the biofuels processing facility, which will convert kitchen and yard waste into renewable natural gas to fuel Surrey’s rubbish collection fleet.
According to Paul Oostelbos, Orgaworld’s director of international business development, site preparation is now complete and work on the foundations has begun, with flooring soon to follow.
The plant, which will include an anaerobic digester (AD) and composter, is being developed as a public-private partnership (P3) between Orgaworld Canada, the organic waste processing business part of Shanks Group; the city of Surrey, the project’s main contractor; and Orgaworld Surrey, a new subsidiary created to head the project.
Orgaworld Surrey will undertake the design, building, finance, maintenance, and operation of the new facility.
Once operational, the Surrey plant, expected to cost CAD65 million (€43.3 million), will have an annual processing capacity of over 115,000 tonnes of organic waste, which will be enough to fuel more than 20 rubbish trucks.
Additionally, the facility will produce approximately 35,000 tonnes of compost per year that will be suitable for landscaping and agricultural applications.
For AD processing, the plant will Orgaworld’s Biocel dry AD technology, which has already been implemented at the company’s plants in the Netherlands, and which Oostelbos says requires little pre-treatment.
‘What we see in North America is that more and more cities are changing to compressed natural gas-fueled trucks, and that they also have to look at the amount of food and kitchen waste going to the landfill. I think there is a great opportunity for these types of projects in North America,” Oostelbos says.
The facility is expected to begin operation after commissioning in early 2017.
