Member Stories

SIA and our members are dedicated to finding ways to reduce impacts on our environment. As industry leaders, we have a responsibility to be good environmental stewards. Some examples of what our industry members have done recently in support of this aim include:

  • AltaSteel—Is one of the largest recyclers in Alberta recycling over 300,000 tonnes of scrap steel annually and manufacturing products made from 100 per cent recycled scrap steel. The “Switch Out” program, which they co-fund, also recovers mercury switches from end-of-life vehicles and has collected over 400,000 mercury switches since 2008.
  • Capital Power—Their Clover Bar Landfill Gas facility uses landfill gas from the City of Edmonton’s Waste Management Centre, and is the only one in Alberta generating renewable energy with it. It produces 4.8 MW of renewable energy—enough to power approximately 4,600 homes. The facility is also an important source of registered and retired offsets in Alberta.
  • Edmonton Waste Management Centre—Is the largest collection of modern, sustainable waste processing and research facilities in North America and the first of its kind. This includes the Greys Paper and Glass Recycling Facility—completed in 2012—that involves closed-loop recycling by processing the waste paper collected from City of Edmonton offices and selling the recycled paper products back to the City. The facility will have the capacity to process 40 metric tonnes per day (14,400 m. tonnes/yr).
  • Enbridge— as part of the company’s Neutral Footprint commitments, Enbridge has pledged to stabilize its environmental footprint to January 2009 levels by planting a tree for every tree it removes to build new facilities, conserving an acre of land for every acre of wilderness it permanently impacts, and generating a kilowatt hour of renewable energy for every kilowatt hour its operations consume. Enbridge has met its “Kilowatt” commitment, in part, through its investments in wind and solar energy projects, making it Canada’s largest solar – and second largest wind – energy generator.
  • EPCOR – Biosolids, a by-product from the process of treating municipal wastewater, is beautifying local communities. A made-in-Canada technology pioneered at the Gold Bar Wastewater Treatment Plant takes this by-product – which has significant concentrations of nitrogen, phosphorus and other elements essential for plant growth – and turns it into fertilizer for qualifying local farmland through Edmonton’s NutriGold program. Biosolids are also used in the production of various compost products at The City of Edmonton’s composter.
  • Keyera—The Alberta EnviroFuels (AEF) facility produces iso-octane (has lower vapor pressure, high octane value and hardly any sulphur content) for blending into gasoline to reduce emissions from the combustion process and lower the likelihood of evaporation when handling fuel. It is the largest iso-octane manufacturing facility in the world—producing 13,600 barrels per day.
  • Kinder Morgan—Developed a Weed Management Plan for preventing the spread of weeds (non-native species) and control weeds. This is based on an integrated approach, as an alternative to the “blanket spraying” of the past, where herbicides (under the Pest Control Products Act) with low persistence levels and low mobility are used selectively to limit use in conjunction with mechanical techniques and seeding disturbed areas with native seed mix.
  • Suncor—Suncor supplies its Edmonton refinery with treated and recycled municipal wastewater for its manufacturing operations, which has significantly reduced the amount of fresh water withdrawn from the North Saskatchewan River. Since 2005, Suncor has been using a 5.5 kilometre water pipeline to carry filtered water from EPCOR’s Gold Bar Wastewater Treatment Plant for this purpose.