The Town of Innisfail, a municipality of 7,000 in central Alberta, recently came to a glass recycling agreement with a British Columbia based company, Enviro-Corp Recycling.
Under the agreement, the town will pay Enviro-Corp $65 per tonne to recycle glass that residents drop off at the municipal transfer station.
At its regular meeting on April 11th, the town council voted unanimously to enter into an agreement with Enviro-Corp Recycling to handle glass recycling needs.
Enviro-Corp Recycling is headquartered in British Columbia. It has been in business since 2008. The company recycles glass beverage containers for use in the glass bottle manufacturing industry.
The Enviro-Corp Recycling process includes color sorting, crushing and sizing as well as removing labels, aluminum and metal from the containers. The glass that leaves Enviro-Corp’s facility is furnace ready and needs no further processing before being melted down and made into new glass bottles.
Enviro-Corp Recycling is a division of United Concrete & Gravel Ltd, a company that began in 1977.
One of the products generated by Enviro-Corp Recycling is enviro-grit abrasives. This blasting abrasive is 100% crystalline silica-free and made from recycled glass. It is used for removing rust and most coatings on the surfaces of a variety of materials.
Heather Whymark, the town’s Director of Corporate Services, had been looking into finding a company to do glass recycling. Under the glass recycling agreement, Enviro-Corp Recycling will charge the Town $65 per tonne to recycle the glass. Currently, it is costing the Town $125 per tonne to dispose in a landfill.
As for the impact the new service will have on the town budget, Whymark said because the glass recycling cost, $65 per tonne, is half the $125 cost for waste removal, the town should be able to break even, at least in the first year.
At this point, the town considers the glass recycling arrangement to be a pilot project and its success will depend on the uptake by residents to dropping off glass for recycling at the town’s transfer station.
For Enviro-Corp, the Town of Innisfail situation between Calgary and Edmonton – two municipalities that they currently pick up glass for recycling.
