edmontonjournal.com: EDMONTON – Fort McMurray plans to turn its trash into tomatoes. By this time next year, the northern gateway hopes to be growing produce in a greenhouse heated with electricity generated by combining solid waste with biodiesel manufactured from used cooking oil.
“If you came up here next July, I could slice up a tomato and put it on top of a hamburger, with some locally grown specialty lettuce in between,” Darcy Dragonetti, manager of solid waste for the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, said this week. “It is pretty exciting.”
Part of a larger initiative to make Fort McMurray a more sustainable community, the greenhouse would be set up at the regional landfill, and use energy converted from garbage to grow herbs, plants and vegetables year-round.
Prototypes of the greenhouse which incorporate the technology will be built and tested next year, with full-scale production expected in 2014.
