Local investors building innovative facility that will reduce costs and increase service levels for Coaldale residents
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Over the past three years, the Town of Coaldale has been exploring various partnership opportunities with the private sector to identify service level enhancements – and cost saving measures – for the Town's solid waste handling program. To achieve this, the Town of Coaldale has recently reached an agreement with 2Point0 Ltd. that outlines a “Made in Coaldale” solution for handling and processing recyclables collected from the Town’s blue bin program.
“As a municipality we’ve recognized for several years that increasing costs as it relates to processing solid waste in all forms represents a risk to municipalities, and Coaldale is no exception,” said Cam Mills, Manager of Economic Development & Strategic Initiatives at the Town of Coaldale. “This partnership with 2Point0 provides us with an opportunity to hedge against increasing costs for tipping some of our waste, while also providing the community with a number of spin-off benefits that will either lower our costs or allow us to provide a higher level of service.”
Coaldale does curbside collection for three forms of waste: black bins for garbage, blue bins for recycling, and green bins for organics. Black and blue bins are currently collected and brought to Lethbridge for processing, whereas the green bins are tipped in Taber. The 2Point0 facility will allow for the blue bin waste to be processed in Coaldale, where it will principally be used as a component in the production of a low carbon fuel product that is designed to be a replacement for coal in industrial applications.
“The Town has been heavily reliant on Lethbridge’s facilities to process our waste; Lethbridge has been a tremendous partner for Coaldale over the years and we continue to value working with them and their staff,” said Mills. “Moving forward with this facility provides us with an opportunity to handle some of our waste locally, and we’re excited about what working with 2Point0 will allow us to offer our community.”
While we tend to think of Coaldale as a small town, the reality is that the volumes of waste that are ultimately produced even by a smaller community can be surprising. Looking at volumes from 2020, Coaldale residents produced about 1.1 million pounds of recycling waste, 2.5 million pounds of organics, and 3.3 million pounds of garbage all as part of its residential curbside collection program. Finding a home for this waste means paying someone to take it, which is why Coaldale has been looking into innovative waste management solutions like what is being offered by 2Point0.
There are a number of other additional value-added benefits to 2Point0’s facility.
“Also outlined in the agreement is the establishment of a year-round, supervised yard waste drop-off site as well as a large-load recycling drop off site,” said Mills. “Allowing 2Point0 to take over these operations means additional cost savings to our community while simultaneously increasing the level of service.”
The facility, once fully operational, will also be able to take a broader range of materials than what is currently allowed in blue bins, including plastic bags, shredded bagged paper, and Styrofoam.
“Overall, this project offers a low upfront cost and limited risk for the Town of Coaldale with potential for major cost savings for our taxpayers,” said Mills. “This first-of-its-kind project will allow Coaldale and other municipalities and companies in the region to take the next step toward modernizing our approach to waste management and delivering a high level of service to our residents at a lower cost.”