The City of Surrey is moving closer to realizing the new organics biofuel facility with today's issuance of a Request for Qualifications for the project.

Surrey's new Rethink Waste program was launched on October 1st, 2012, and includes curbside organics collection and an entire fleet of compressed natural gas waste collection trucks.

The RFQ is the first stage in the competitive selection process that invites teams to submit responses indicating their interest in and qualifications for the project. The next step will be to identify a shortlist of up to three teams who will then be invited to submit proposals to design, build, partially finance and maintain the new facility.

The estimated construction cost is C$65 million and will be refined once the contract has been awarded.

The project:

The facility will process residential and commercial kitchen and yard waste into a renewable fuel, which will be used to power our new waste trucks. The 80,000 metric tonne per year facility will be the largest of its kind in Canada and will help the City and Metro Vancouver achieve the regional 70 per cent waste diversion target by 2015.

The new program has already led to a 43 per cent reduction in garbage sent to the landfill. Once the biofuel facility is operating, Surrey will be home to the only fully-integrated organics waste management system in North America.

Source: City of Surrey