Sustainable City Policies - Theme Cities: Solutions for Urban Problems - page 211

Table 6.1 Edmonton's Waste Management System. (Source: From publications of Edmonton's,
Waste Management Centre, 2012)
Waste and Sewage Treatment Plants: Edmonton, Canada
North America's largest and most advanced Waste Management Centre (EWMC) is located on
a 233 ha. site in the Clover Bar district of Edmonton, a metropolitan region of 1.2 million. In
2012 the centre processed 60 % of residential waste that would have gone into the old landfill
system through various treatment centres, but this figure will rise to 90 % by the end of 2013,
turning the unwanted waste into resources that can be used elsewhere. In addition the centre
operates research facilities and exports its expertise to other cities. Some of the facilities are
public-private operations.
a) In 2000 the Edmonton Composing Centre opened to turn organic waste and sewage sludge
into compost that is sold to farmers and gardeners.
b) In 2004 a world class Material Recovery Centre opened in a 6000 sq. ft. building. This sorts
and processes 40,000 t of waste a year, separating out recyclable material.
c) In 2012 the Global Electronic and Electrical Processing Centre (GEEP) opened in a
4500 sq. ft building. This recycles 30,000 t of electronic products a year. There are also 3 Eco-
Centres in the city where paint, electronic goods and other hazardous products can be dropped
off for processing.
d) In 2012 Greys Paper and Glass Recycling Plant opened in a purpose-built dome 26 m high.
It processes the paper and cardboard from the Materials Centre into paper products and glass
bricks.
e) In 2013 one of the world's largest industrial scale biogas facilities will open on the same
site. It will process a further 30 % of the total household waste that cannot be recycled, first
into methanol and then ethanol. It is designed to process 100,000 t of waste into 38 million L
of an auto-fuel, which has far lower CO2 emissions than oil-derived gasoline.
At the Gold Bar site the city has also developed one of the continent ʼ s most efficient Waste
Water Treatment centres, treating up to 310 million L of sewage a year, first separating out
the recyclables and grit by various barriers, second using membranes to separate water that
is suitable for industrial use, and then sending the residue to various fermenters and anaero-
bic digesters, which creates a sludge that is used for composting, in addition to creating a
biogas by-product worth $ 1 million a year. After approximately 18 h of processing the now
clean water is subjected to ultraviolet light to kill remaining bacteria and sent to the North
Saskatchewan river.

6﻽3 More Sustainable Buildings

The last two decades have seen an explosion of interest in applying sustainable
principles to buildings, not simply to new structures (Baird 2010 ; Bokalders 2010 ;
Yudelson and Meyer 2013 ), but also to retrofitting old buildings to these new stan-
dards (Carroon 2010 ; Yudelson 2010 ). Given the scope of this field, space con-
straints mean only a few highlights can be noted, such as the intent to: make them
healthier and safer; reduce inputs; adopt new management procedures; and create
new industry standards.

6.3.1 Safer Buildings

Perhaps the first stage in improving the sustainability of buildings comes from the
attempts to make them safer, which means strict building codes to ensure the use of