Banff N-Rich organic waste recycling project, implemented by the Town to manage biosolids and kitchen food waste, is up for a prestigious environmental award.
The Town of Banff and N-Viro Canada LP are finalists for the 2014 Globe Award for Excellence in Urban Sustainability. This award will be presented on Friday, March 28 at the Globe 2014 Conference in Vancouver.
The Town of Banff was the first municipality in Western Canada to install the N-Viro organic waste recycling process, which harvests essential nutrients from organic waste streams and turns them into Banff N-Rich, a registered fertilizer under the Fertilizers Act with The Canadian Food Inspection Agency. All Banff N-Rich produced has been presold to a major landscaping company in Strathmore.
Before the Banff N-Rich project, the Town was shipping its cured compost to a former landfill inside Banff National Park, and was being stockpiled as the Town searched unsuccessfully for a market. As Parks Canada wanted to reclaim the landfill site, a new management system was necessary. N-Viro was successfully employed in other regions in eastern Canada and in 2012, the Alberta Ministry of Environment and Parks Canada approved the N-Viro installation at Banff's wastewater treatment plant. Operational since February 2013, the plant provides Banff a sustainable solution for the management of its organic waste and helps meet its Community Plan vision “to be a sustainable national park community.”
N-Viro Canada LP is part of the Walker Environmental Group, a division of Walker Industries Group of Companies.
Held every two years since 1990, the Globe Conference and Trade Fair is North America’s largest international gathering of public, private and NGO sectors involved in the business of the environment.