Sludge Watch ==> Toronto - Landfill? Compost? Gasification? Pellets?

[maureen.reilly at sympatico.ca]

http://torontosun.com/News/TorontoAndGTA/2006/08/01/1712912-sun.html

August 1, 2006
Toronto Sun

Toronto's poop scoopCity finds takers in Ontario and Quebec for 70,000 
tonnes of its sewage sludge
By ZEN RURYK, CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF




It's OK to flush -- the city has found new homes for Toronto's poop.

City waste officials solved a stink of a problem yesterday, saying they have 
found locations to dispose of treated sewage sludge -- for the short term, 
at least.

Republic Services sent Toronto's waste managers scrambling for alternatives 
when it decreed on May 31 it would no longer accept Toronto's sludge at the 
company's Carleton Farms Landfill in Michigan as of today.

"For the short term, we're fine. We have no issues," Mayor David Miller 
said. "It's the medium, longer term that we have some challenges."

He said that the city has contracts with other companies to dispose of 
70,000 of the 160,000 tonnes of sludge produced by the city each year. The 
city has been sending up to 15 sludge-laden trucks to Michigan daily.


City officials are in negotiations with other disposal companies to deal 
with the remainder of Toronto's sewage waste, Miller said.

Plans also call for the city to have a pelletizer in operation next year 
that will take care of about half of Toronto's sludge. The processed poop 
pellets can be used as fertilizer.

The city has signed a three-year contract with Burlington-based 
Environmental Management Solutions Inc. to take 50,000 tonnes of sludge in 
one year and 35,000 tonnes in each of the subsequent two years.

It has also entered into a one-year contract with Ferti-Val Inc., in 
Sherbrooke, Que., to take 20,000 tonnes of sludge.

Councillor Michael Del Grande, who sits on the city's works committee, 
warned that Michiganites who oppose taking Canadian garbage may succeed in 
closing the border to all of Toronto's trash. While the city's sewage sludge 
has been banned from the Carleton Farms dump, Toronto continues to send its 
other garbage to the landfill.

He said the city needs a "made-in-Toronto" waste disposal solution that 
incorporates gasification -- a method of burning garbage and producing 
electricity.