EFS-Plastics Inc. IS LEAVING ELMIRA

This story ran in the Waterloo Region Record last Saturday May 12/12. The title was "Bye-bye to the big cities". The sub title of the story was "Cool reception from Kitchener, Waterloo prompts business to expand in Listowel". Despite this being an allegedly green business which recycles plastics, my initial thought upon seeing this article was good riddance to bad rubbish. This however I must admit was strictly a personal reaction. I've met the owner and am unimpressed with him.

Throughout this story is the claim that because this business uses a high volume of water it was causing difficulty at the local sewage treatment plant. This makes no sense at all. Uniroyal/Chemtura used to use vastly increased volumes of water in their processes and any problems they caused the Elmira STP were due to the quality of their effluent, not the volume. Similarily I heard a year ago plus that there were quality issues with the effluent from EFS Plastics. This information came indirectly through informal channels from Woolwich Township. I would characterize the source as sometimes reliable. Having seen the operations of EFS Plastics I was quite surprised at the claim of effluent problems. As described in the Record's article, they wash the incoming plastics. Obviously food containers shouldn't have serious issues. Ah I just had a brain wave. I saw pre washed plastics coming in from the Region of Waterloo. Is there any chance that this pre-washing operation was transferred to EFS ? Also I saw plastic oil bottles. Again somebody somewhere has to wash all the oil out of these bottles before they can be ground up and recycled. The other possibilty may have to do with the centrifuge system they use to seperate the plastics by weight and density. The ground up plastics are put into a large vat filled with rotating water and the plastic pieces settle out at various levels in the water. Is it possible that all the plastic is not sucessfully removed from the water prior to discharge to the sewers?

In a nutshell I'm not buying the excuses in this article that EFS's large water useage is a factor in their difficulty locating in Kitchener-Waterloo. Look at the huge industries and factories in K-W that are now closed. Their water useage would absolutely swamp EFS. EFS are a tiny little plant on Union St. across from the old Varnicolor Chemical site. Perhaps Listowel/North Perth might want to double check and be certain they are going into this with full knowledge, up front.