To the Editor:

In my free time I've been looking at successful municipal solid waste compost facilities. One site I found interesting is in Edmonton, Canada. With a population about the same as Rhode Island it's a good example. From the web site:

Since 2000, the Edmonton Composting Facility at the Edmonton Waste Management Center has used the organic waste collected from city households and biosolids (sewage sludge) as resources to create compost, a rich soil supplement. Together with established recycling programs it enables Edmonton to divert up to 60% of its residential waste from landfill.

It's what they are doing next that really caught my eye. 

Construction has started on the world’s first industrial scale municipal waste-to-biofuels facility. The $80 million Edmonton Waste-to-Biofuels Facility will be built, owned and operated by Enerkem Alberta Biofuels. It will convert 100,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste into 36 million litres of biofuels annually and help reduce Alberta’s carbon dioxide (CO2) footprint by six million tonnes over the next 25 years—the equivalent of removing 42,000 cars off the road every year. The facility is expected to be operational in 2012.

The feedstock for producing biofuels is municipal solid waste that cannot be recycled or composted and has traditionally been sent to landfill. Using waste to produce cleaner burning fuels is a major leap forward in Edmonton's commitment to alternatives to landfills and an integrated energy vision.

Tiverton has a chance to turn around and avert a potential hazard. We have a landfill that at any time could contaminate the drinking water in the south end of town. This potential hazard should to be remedied. There are affordable solutions.

The Recycling/Landfill Committee is in need of members. This is a call for help. Let's bring our best and brightest together and fix this problem with a long-term solution.

Trash to biofuel, what will they think of next?

Joe Sousa
Tiverton