Sludge incinerator may never be built

It won environmental approval more than two years ago, and has been pursued in Hamilton since at least 2004, but the proposed Liberty Energy sludge incinerator hasn’t started construction and may never happen. The sticking point appears to be the city’s plans to burn their own fecal material rather than pay a private operator to do it.

In February 2008, Liberty convinced the Ontario Ministry of the Environment toapprove its proposal to incinerate 340,000 tonnes a year of sewage sludge using a gasification process at its 675 Strathearne Avenue property. For the company, it was an apparently successful end to a nearly three-year battle that saw environmental groups, scientists and even city council challenge the re-introduction of incineration to a city that had shut down its SWARU municipal facility in 2002.