Cielo Waste Solutions in Aldersyde continues to grow just a couple years after setting up shop.
The plant takes wood waste products from contracted sources and turns it into renewable diesel.
Cielo purchased the plant from a biodiesel facility that used animal tallow from Cargill and built their own facility.
President and CEO Don Allan says they've just recently received debt financing term sheets.
"We've gone out and received some term sheets so we can double the size of the facility," he says. "We want to be able to do 2,000 litres an hour out of that facility and that'll be max."
Allan says that's because of the size of the property they have there.
He says they're hoping to get permission soon from the Alberta government to do railroad ties, plastic, cardboard and glossy flyers as well as sewage that's already been dried and cleaned.
"We're not in the landfill business so everything comes to us prepared in sealed trailers and put right into the process so there's no emissions, no harmful emissions at all, it's one of the greenest refineries that's been built in the world."
He says no one has built a facility like this one and there are always improvements that can be made to recover as much waste as possible.
They've gotten away from the natural gas boilers and moved to electric heat so they can buy a lot of green power and make the plant as green as possible.
Cielo is planning to expand with about 40 facilities across North America over the next five years including one in Edmonton where they have a Consulting Agreement in place.
"It's pretty exciting for us, we've wanted to move into Edmonton since we started the business 16 years ago," Allan says. "Edmonton is an ideal location for us because that's where the majority of our clients would be, that's where all the refineries are, the Esso's, the Suncor's the Huskies that's where our market is so the closer we can be to that market that makes sense for us, it's a huge market."
He says the whole business model is to eliminate landfills, believing they can take pretty much anything that goes into a landfill and turn it into diesel, with the exception of metals or rocks or dirt and there's already markets for those.
https://www.highriveronline.com/local/aldersyde-waste-plant-expands