The partners of PolyAg Recycling Ltd. are looking to stay in Bashaw and expand their operation — locally.
Owner/partner Dan Zembal is confident their ongoing water supply issue will be resolved, and says the community has been good to the business so far.
“The workforce has been incredible … We were well-received by the town,” said Zembal.
In the short time that PolyAg Recycling has been in operation, it has become quite successful, and has quite a few plans for its future.
Construction on the current location began in the fall of 2019, and by January 2020, was open for production.
The grain sacs the plant recycles are collected from Alberta and Saskatchewan. In Alberta, the collection is part of a pilot program.
Their systems shred and screen the plastic sacs, and the plastic goes through a washing, rinsing and drying process to remove impurities, before being heated several times and ultimately shaped and cut into the smooth, flat, rounded pellets.
The finished pellets are then lab tested for quality assurance before being shipped to manufacturers. They can then be used to make a variety of other products, such as composite lumber and polymers as well as weeping tiles and plastic film.
In the washing process, grain and any grit is separated from the plastic and disposed of as waste.
PolyAg Recycling has sold pellets as far abroad as China, but as of June, is selling exclusively to North America.
The owners are looking to expand their operation at their current location.
Their system is running at maximum capacity, 24-hours a day, Monday to Friday. They are now pre-selling 100 per cent of their product.
The company is hoping to expand in the near future to include a second extrusion line, which would double their output.
A new annex building would need to be constructed for the second extrusion line as well as for storage.
They will also be looking at ways to use the waste product from the washing process, as as it still contains a fair amount of plastic.
Down, the road, they also have plans to make some of their own products from their plastic pellets as well.
They are in the research and development stage right now, working with a company in the lower mainland in B.C. for product development ideas and with the University of Alberta to test their material to see what it may be suitable for.
“We’re looking at what that product could be,” said Zembal.
They are also interested in recycling other plastic materials, including pond liners from oil and gas tailing ponds. The plastic is too dense for their current system to shred.
Other plastics they are looking into recycling are black pipe, plastic pallets, supersacs and twine.
“These are some of the plastics we’re looking at,” said Zembal.
In order to process these products, an additional building for pre-shredding would be needed.
Eventually, the owners may consider opening a second plant for recycling a variety of plastics, which they would also want to be located in Bashaw, as long as adequate water and power supplies are available, he says.
The three owners, from Calgary at the time, looked at several locations for their recycling plant before settling on Bashaw, and they’re glad they did.
Bashaw is an ideal location because it’s within a large grain belt and they wanted to be close to central Alberta, but on the east side of Hwy. 2, as to have closer access to Saskatchewan. Real estate prices were also very reasonable as well and Bashaw has a very good local labour force, says Zembal.
It has worked out so well that Zembal relocated to White Sands and now calls the area home.
The partners been very happy with their 12-person staff, and if they were to open a second recycling plant, they would be able to employ more local people, says Zembal.
