Committee members, thank you very much for your kind invitation and for your interest and work in the important area of municipal waste management in Canada.
As mentioned, my name is Edmond Chiasson, and I should apologize that all of my remarks will be in English. Even though I have a nice Acadian name from Cape Breton Island, I did all of my studies in English, and somewhere along the way, English took over.
I've been with Plasco Energy Group for eight years. I have to say that as I've learned a great deal about the complex world of waste management and energy generation, not being either an engineer or a science person, even after eight years, I don't want to qualify myself as an expert on a particular technology. I'll put that on the table at the outset.
I'd like to make a first comment, though, for consideration, and it's the following. I think there's an undeniable reality in the world of waste management. That reality is that we, as a society—and not just restricted to Canada—haven't really done a great job of managing materials after we're ready to get rid of them. We haven't done a great job of designing products so as to minimize waste when they're finished their life cycle. We haven't really figured out how to reuse as many materials as we could, and we haven't figured out the best way at all times to recycle materials.
We've made some good efforts. We've made great progress in the last 30 or 40 years, but one fact remains. The predominant method of dealing with residual materials in the world today, including Canada, is to bury these materials in the ground. In Ontario, for example, last year, that was nine million tonnes. Think of how much garbage that is. At the end of the day, I think that digging a hole in the ground to dispose of material just doesn't feel right. There has to be a better way to deal with that.
What does it mean to do better than what we're doing now? At the outset, maybe we should set an objective for ourselves. Our experience at Plasco has been that in Canada, and in many other jurisdictions, when we're dealing with policy-makers, there seems to be a consensus on the objective of good waste management practice, and the objective is zero waste.
We, at Plasco, actually support that objective, and we hope to contribute to that objective. We believe our contribution can best be measured on the premise of technological innovation, which is of course one of the items referenced in your study. By that I mean, how can we try to recover more value from materials that we now landfill? Let's make sure that materials are redirected to their next best use, and just before the garbage truck heads to the dump, let's see what innovation can offer. That's where the story of Plasco begins.
Plasco Energy Group is an Ottawa-based company that has been developing its own technology to improve on current established waste to energy. Plasco's core process and intellectual property go back more than 25 years, including early partnerships with our own National Research Council. At its most basic, the Plasco process gasifies waste to a fuel, what we refer to as a synthetic gas, that can then be used to generate electricity with internal combustion engines. The key factor here for non-engineers like me to understand is that rather than burning waste—what's known as incineration, combustion, or energy from waste—Plasco uses heat to change waste materials from solids to a gas. Hopefully, we all remember that from science. That's known as gasification.
While gasification is a well-known and proven technology, it is not yet fully established as a commercial technology for managing municipal waste, where every garbage bag is different. That's why this is still in the innovation stage of the technology development cycle. However, we're finally ready for the stage of commercialization.
Why are we and others doing this? That's the power of innovation. We're doing this because we believe that gasification has the potential to generate more energy from one tonne of waste as compared to existing technology—more energy, more value. We believe superior environmental benefits can result from that, primarily cleaner air emissions, the recovery of water as opposed to the use of water, and less waste left for landfills.
The bottom line is that we believe technology offers something potentially better for many communities. That's why we're doing this. Of course, the potential of a disruptive technology could lead to a great business right here at home, jobs at home. Of course, it's not easy. What makes sense on paper doesn't always work in real life. But 25 years later, we believe we're about ready to go.
What has Plasco done so far? We have raised around $400 million to advance our technology, and more than half of that capital has been spent in Canada. That's a good story. We've created 130 full-time permanent good jobs, and we've worked with Canadian companies as key suppliers to building our system, and they'll be part of our supply chain when our technology goes to market.
We've done much market research on where there's a good fit for our technology. We've built a commercial-scale demonstration facility to prove our technology readiness, and we are now ready for that next big step of going to full commercial deployment. We're working with the City of Ottawa, the Government of Ontario, and the Government of Canada, for a first commercial facility right here in the City of Ottawa, and we're continuing to move forward on that project. We're also looking at project opportunities in other jurisdictions.
I'd like to emphasize my next point. While we like to tell our own story, we're very proud of our own story, we feel positive about something that's broader than that, which is the reality that Canada is developing a number of other technologies in this sector. It's not only about Plasco. Last year McKinsey and Company did a major study for National Resources Canada, your colleagues on that committee, and they basically determined that Canada has huge potential in this emerging space of energy from waste. We are hopeful that you will consider that report in your deliberations and in your work, because it actually suggests that Canada can become a global leader in this next stage of technology.
Some five years ago we were approached by the U.K. High Commissioner, Anthony Cary was his name, to come and visit our facility. We were advised that as part of its EU commitment to waste management targets and commitment to renewable energy, they were developing a new policy framework to support technologies such as Plasco. In our view, superb work has been done in the U.K. that may be of interest to Canadian policy-makers. It may be worth noting, if I can be so bold, that this policy thrust has been developed and is being implemented by a coalition government of Conservative Prime Minister Cameron and Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg. So some policy matters can cross political lines maybe. As a result of this policy, there are significant development projects happening in the U.K., two of which are now in construction and involve more than $600 million of investment and 1,500 jobs. Other projects are following. Could this be a model for Canada? Does this suggest that if the policy is right, the private market will follow?
I sometimes say that 10 years ago there were five people working at Plasco in a small warehouse in east-end Ottawa trying to determine where they were going and whether they'd be in business in a few months. I'd like to report that Plasco is a good example that innovation is alive and well in Canada. With $400 million and 130 full-time jobs later, we believe we have one of the technologies that can bring the Canadian brand to the world.
We'd be happy to provide our thoughts on how the government could possibly assist an emerging industry in which Canadian companies could be global leaders. We may not be Google and developing a driverless car, but if our technologies can make a significant contribution to the world challenge of waste management and a cleaner planet, we will have done something good for the world.
Thank you.