Teru Talk Newsletter
Volume V, Issue 10, March
9,
2015
Teru Talk by Michael
Theroux (pronounced
"Terú")
Teru's Trash Talk
Well executed municipal waste
management is a beautiful thing
to behold (trust me on this
one). When state-of-the-art
waste
conversion
has
its rightful place within
that waste management
scenario, we just get
ecstatic.
So it is with the City of
Surry, Canada, where first one
then another element of the
region's overall advanced waste
management program has been
surfacing over time. As one of
the twenty-some-odd
municipalities within the Metro
Vancouver partnership, Surry
does not stand alone in their
progressive waste conversion
implementation - and quite
regularly, they claim the Lead
Dog position. The view's always
so much better from the front
of the line.
It has been only two years and
six months since Surry
partnered up with agencies and
industry to develop an advanced
organic waste to fuels
conversion facility, and this
week, Mayor Linda Hepner
couldn't hold back that
delightful broad smile, whilst
turning over a spade-full of
Project Site Dirt. Start to
shovel, 30 months: how long has
been since
your
area
broke ground on a major
municipal infrastructure
project in under three
years?
Credit where due: Mayor Hepner
had help - the Port Kells
anaerobic digestion to biofuels
project planning began under
her predecessor Mayor Dianne
Watts. The Canadian government
kicked in almost 25% of the
costs, and the City's
industrial partners Orgaworld
and Shanks now round out the
engineering and tech platform
expertise.
Now we need to look further
afield: Metro Vancouver took a
big leap and joined the United
Kingdom's Waste & Resource
Action Programme (WRAP) in
September of last year for help
implementing WRAP's "Love Food
- Hate Waste" highly developed
food waste focused public
education template. Metro is
launching pilot food waste
collection efforts this year,
so Surry's groundbreaking is
happening none too
soon.
But then, WRAP had a great
training ground for food waste
management, starting in
2012-2013; they implemented the
program for the western region
of the City of London. This was
part of an even broader and
more ambitious "food rescue"
effort spearheaded by
yet
another
Lead Dog, the
often contentious Mayor
Boris Johnson. London's
borough-by-borough
"pilots" involved around
10,000 local waste
generators. When you've
cut your food waste
management teeth (so to
speak) on London, then
Metro Vancouver probably
doesn't seem such a
daunting
challenge.
Then again, London and WRAP
took their cue from the
Courtauld Commitment, a
voluntary agreement entered
into and funded jointly by
England, Wales, Scotland, and
Northern Ireland. This
super-national effort's intent
is to improve resource
efficiency and reduce waste
within the United Kingdom's
grocery
sector.
No wonder
Mayor Hepner and her colleagues
are sporting such big
smiles.
Hey Rube!
On the California front, be
aware that CalRecycle has
pushed their "State of
Recycling and State of Disposal
in California" workshop from
Tuesday of this week, to
Tuesday of
next
week on
March 24th. Just in case you
didn't get the memo
...
This Week's Top Story
City of
Surrey Breaks Ground for 1st
Close-Loop Biofuel
Processing
Facility
The City of Surrey, British
Columbia, Canada, held a
groundbreaking ceremony last
week for the City's new organic
waste Biofuel Processing
Facility.
03/05/2015
The Week's News
Altranex
Corporation Receives First
US Patent for Renewable
Lubricants
Ontario, Canada based Altranex
Corporation has received
notification from the United
States Patent & Trademark
Office (USPTO) that its first
Patent has been allowed.
03/05/2015/span>
PHG Energy
to Construct Waste-To-Energy
Gasification Facility in
Tennessee
PHG Energy (PHG) has signed a
contract with the City of
Lebanon, Tennessee, to provide
a downdraft gasification plant
that will cleanly convert up to
64 tons per day of blended
waste wood, scrap tires, and
sewer sludge into a fuel gas
that will generate up to 300Kw
of electricity.
03/04/2015
California's
Landfill Tipping Fees Lower
Than Expected for
MSW
The California Department of
Resources, Recycling and
Recovery (CalRecycle) has
announced availability of the
newly published report,
Landfill Tipping Fees
California.
03/03/2015
UPM
Lappeenranta Biorefinery
wins Commercial Scale Plant
of The
Year
UPM Biofuels was awarded the
Commercial Scale Plant of the
year in the WBM Bio Business
2015 competition yesterday in
Amsterdam.
03/03/2015
Global
Bioenergies Produces First
Isobutene from Waste
Biomass
Global Bioenergies has
announced that it has produced
“second generation” isobutene,
toward its goal to diversify
accessible feedstock towards
cheaper resources.
03/03/2015
GFBiochemicals
Levulinic Acid Technology
Ready For
Commercialization
Biobased chemicals company
GFBiochemicals is starting
commercialization of its
levulinic acid using its
proprietary technology.
03/02/2015
Foresight
and GIB Finance 10MWe
Gasification WtE Plant in
Hertfordshire
Foresight Group (Foresight) and
the United Kingdom (UK) Green
Investment Bank plc (GIB) have
announced a £30m investment in
the construction of a new £60m
advanced-technology Waste to
Energy (WtE) gasification
facility in Hoddesdon,
Hertfordshire.
03/02/2015
Canadian
Government Invests in
Biofuels
Sector
The Honourable Michelle Rempel,
Minister of State for Western
Economic Diversification
Canada, has announced an
investment of $538,542 in
technology to enable biofuel
producers in Western Canada to
purify and convert raw glycerol
more cost-effectively.
03/02/2015
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