Waste food could power trucks in Toronto
Garbage trucks in Toronto, Canada, could soon be fuelled by biomethane derived from kitchen leftovers.
Dufferin, the city's pilot processing facility, is due to convert the biomethane into natural gas by mid-2011. The project will continue until the end of 2013.
This gas is currently being flared off, however the new project will soon see it captured and pumped into the Enbridge natural gas distribution system.
From there it will be cleaned of carbon dioxide, water vapour, hydrogen sulphide and ammonia before it is suitable to power trucks that can run on compressed natural gas.
Waste heat from the process will also be captured and reused.
The Dufferin facility will start out by recovering around 1.4 million m3 of biomethane annually, or enough to power 78 trucks.
However this is set to increase and Dufferin has already been scheduled to close down in 2013 for an expansion project, expected to last around six months. The expansion plans will see Dufferin double in size from 25,000 tonnes of waste to 50,000 tonnes.