Roy S. Jones Jr., a hereditary chief from Haida Gwaii, is advocating for a machine that claims to convert municipal waste into energy and potentially eliminate landfills.
He leads Aboriginal Equity Partners Incorporated (AEPI), a First Nations-owned business, and owns Pacific Balance Marine Management Corporation.
Jones explains that this pyrolysis machine, built by their partner company Endpoint Recovery, uses a thermal cracking system to convert municipal solid waste, plastics, tires, and medical waste into commercially valuable products such as diesel and synthetic graphite.
However, the appliance cannot process metal and glass.
“Pyrolysis is catalytic cooking of matter without oxygen. It’s an ancient practice, the Egyptians did it,” said Jones. “It’s really interesting, because we could totally eliminate garbage dumps.”
The Coast Waste Management Association reports at least 226 landfills exist across British Columbia, with the province disposing of 2.6 million tonnes of municipal solid waste in 2022 alone. Each person in the North Coast region contributed nearly 700 kg of waste.
Most of this waste ends up in landfills, and a small amount is incinerated, resulting in greenhouse gas emissions, air pollutants, land disturbance, and water contamination.
Canadians throw away over three million tonnes of plastic waste every year, and only nine per cent of it gets recycled. Jones believes the pyrolysis machine could help address this issue by converting that plastic into fuel.
Marlon Leehim, CEO of Endpoint, explains that their smaller five-tonne machine uses an electric heating coil system, functioning much like a stove. It means there is no combustion—just heat emitted electrically.
Leehim asserts there will be no notable emissions.
"Only microscopic amounts of non-condensable gases will be released when the waste is processed—no sulfur-containing organic compounds (SOCs) or nitrogen-containing organic compounds (NOCs).”
A fuel generator can power a machine in locations without reliable electricity. Fifteen per cent of the fuel produced by the machine as a byproduct can be used to operate the generator, he added.
Leehim elaborated that the larger machines use a hybrid burner system, burning gas or liquid to generate heat. However, the heat never touches the waste directly. They reuse some of the emissions and apply a double scrubbing system to minimize them to microscopic levels.
“If you compare it with waste sitting in landfills, that’s 100 times worse,” said Leehim. Waste in landfills emits greenhouse gases and excess leachate into the land.
Prince Rupert, for instance, was recently fined $165,000 by the province for violations related to waste management, particularly concerning the quantity of leachate produced in its landfill.
Leehim compares his machine’s operation to incineration, noting that while incineration burns waste at temperatures around 2,000 degrees Celsius, the pyrolysis machine operates at a much lower and safer range of 175-450 degrees Celsius.
While the idea of this pyrolysis machine may seem “too good to be true,” he says the technology is already proving successful in places such as South Korea, Europe, and even Quebec.
Chief Jones visited Endpoint in Alberta and saw the ins and outs of the machines.
“The day I saw the one-ton machine work, I was sold,” he said.
Beyond waste management, the byproducts expelled by the pyrolysis machine are valuable and can be sold. Leehim sees this as particularly advantageous for geographically remote areas such as Prince Rupert.
The synthetic graphite produced can be sold and used in numerous things, including batteries, solar panels, metal fabrication, and high-tech items such as lab-grown diamonds.
Jones also pointed out that the machine is portable and could be used to clean up waste in various locations, including beaches.
