Edmonton creates 80 jobs by recycling its office paper locally

Edmonton will send its office paper to a new, privately owned plant - Grey's Paper - where the fibres will be combined with used linens from hotels to create new office paper that will be sold back to Edmontonians at market price. It's called closed-loop recycling.

City officials did not state in their announcement how much paper they committed to buy. The city's waste manager said land at the Edmonton Waste Management Centre was sold to the plant's owner at market value. The city will also pay fair market value for the paper they buy.

Set to be in full swing by 2010, the plant will produce 40 tonnes of paper products every day. Edmontonians toss about 83 tonnes of paper into recycling every day. Rajan Ahluwalia, owner of the plant, said he hopes to eventually recycle all of the city's office paper waste. He's now looking for businesses to sign on and have paper picked up directly from their offices. He said he can produce paper for the same cost as other suppliers, but with less environmental impact.

[Source: Recycling Council of Ontario in Feb. 2009 WasteWatch]

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