October 08, 2015

Emterra Environmental Invests $8M in Third Greener Natural Gas Fleet Fuelling Station in Victoria

VICTORIA, BC – Today, with the help of Oak Bay Mayor and Chair of Capital Regional District (CRD) Board, Nils Jensen, and BC Deputy Minister of Environment , Wes Shoemaker, Emterra Environmental officially opened its second state-of-the-art compressed natural gas (CNG) fuelling station in British Columbia.

Located on John Street in Victoria, the CNG fuelling station is a key part of Emterra’s new capability to provide recycling collection services to the CRD’s 13 municipalities and local businesses, with cleaner-burning, quieter-running, CNG-fuelled collection trucks. Together the 16 new trucks and CNG fuelling station represent an $8 million investment in the CRD.

CNG-fuelled trucks reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 20% compared to diesel-fuelled engines.

“Over the years of service these new trucks will help us cut carbon emissions in the CRD by an estimated 2,800 tonnes[1],” said Emmie Leung, Founder and CEO of Emterra Group at the grand opening today. “That will contribute significantly to the CRD’s and the province’s climate control targets.”

To add to the GHG emission reductions achieved by their own fleet of CNG-fuelled trucks, Emterra is opening the refuelling facility to the public, allowing other CNG fleet owners and operators to conveniently refuel there and encouraging still more to convert to lower-emission CNG options.

“This will allow other third party fleet operators and owners in the region to realize the cost savings of using CNG instead of diesel, as well as the environmental benefits, without having to invest millions of dollars in their own fuelling infrastructure,” Leung said.

This is the third of four CNG fuelling stations that Emterra is establishing in Canada. The first opened in 2012 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Emterra opened the second in Chilliwack in May of this year and the fourth will be opened in Mississauga, Ontario later this month. This makes Emterra one of the leaders in adopting cleaner running CNG technology to help make its operations more environmentally friendly and sustainable.

“We’re blazing the trail in building CNG fuelling stations for our own CNG fleets because we see the economic and environmental benefit of it. But we’re also improving the environmental health of BC by opening up this station for use by other CNG fleet owners and operators and members of the public,” Leung said. 

Emterra’s partner in building and operating the Victoria and Chilliwack facilities is California-based Clean Energy Fuels, which has a division in Chilliwack called Clean Energy Compression (formerly known as IMW Industries) where it builds CNG compressors that are exported around the world.

Iain Johnstone, Regional Manager Canada for Clean Energy Fuels said his company is proud to be partners with Emterra in the Victoria and Chilliwack fuelling stations, and sees Emterra as progressive in its decision to build CNG fuelling stations in BC.

"We applaud Emterra for its leadership in providing access to cleaner natural gas for vehicles in the Fraser Valley and CRD areas. Natural gas as a transportation fuel can provide environmental and economic benefits for fleets of all sizes," said Johnstone.

The CNG fuelling stations contribute to the BC Ministry of Natural Gas Development’s Natural Gas Strategy, including developing new markets for natural gas to increase the value of BC’s natural gas and promoting use of natural gas as a climate solution and to the BC’s Climate Action Charter goals.

Emterra Environmental, a division of Emterra Group and a Canadian leader in recycling resources management and waste diversion was awarded its second consecutive contract following a competitive bid process in the spring by the CRD to provide recycling collection services to 124,000 homes in 13 municipalities including Colwood, Esquimalt, Highlands, Langford, Metchosin, Oak Bay, Saanich, Central Saanich, North Saanich, Sidney, Sooke, Victoria and View Royal, as well as the Juan de Fuca electoral area.

About Emterra Group

Emterra Group is a Canadian leader in waste resources management. A family owned and operated company, it comprises four divisions offering municipal and industrial, commercial and institutional (ICI) customers with a fully integrated approach to collecting, processing and marketing waste, recyclables, organic waste, used tires, and more. Emterra has operations in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Michigan, USA, and annually ships about 500,000 tonnes of recyclables to end-markets to be re-manufactured into new products. Driven by its mandate to increase the sustainability of its operations, Emterra is one of Canada’s most progressive users of alternative green fleet technologies in the waste management industry and consistently deploys the latest green technologies to truly “walk the talk”, including using CNG vehicles and fuelling stations and operating optical sorting equipment in its recycling plants.

 

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Paulina Leung
VP of Corporate Strategy and Business Development
Emterra Group
905.336.9084, ext. 130
Paulina.Leung@emterra.ca