In 2008 the Province of British Columbia commissioned the team of Jon O’Riorden, Asset Strategics, Aqua-Tex Scientific and Farallon to examine the value of a fully integrated approach to recovering energy, water, and nutrients from liquid and solid municipal waste. Processes such as gasification to produce heat and electricity, and anaerobic digestion to produce biogas were investigated for solid organic waste. “Water and Energy Recovery Cells” or “WERCs” were proposed to recover highly-treated wastewater for reuse, and to allow heat and cold to be recovered by means of heat pumps.
The report detailed the barriers to resource recovery in municipalities, including the fact that planning for solid waste, liquid waste, energy, transit, water conservation, and greenhouse gas reductions is typically fragmented among local government silos. The report also modeled the environmental, social, and economic costs and benefits of an integrated approach to planning in these areas, and concluded that resource recovery infrastructure can more than pay its own costs. The report Resources from Waste: Integrated Resource Management Phase I Study Report underwent extensive review, and is available at: www.cscd.gov.bc.ca/ministry/docs/IRM_report.pdf