Like many large organizations, we have a number of waste streams to manage. We practice the “three Rs” of reduce, reuse and recycle.
Regular waste
Because we have employees in offices and generating stations in locations across the province, we need to manage general waste made up of garbage, recyclables and organics. This waste is sorted and removed from our facilities by either certified contractors or municipal waste collection operations.
Industrial waste and special substances
The nature of our business means we have both industrial waste, like ash from our thermal generating stations, and special substances, such as PCBs from old electrical equipment, to dispose of. Some other examples of industrial waste include fuel solids and fuel ash, gypsum, oily rags and blasting grit. We take care to handle and dispose of each type of waste produced by our operations properly.
Ash
The primary industrial waste produced by our operations is the ash produced by burning coal and oil. This ash is a combination of fly ash (collected using equipment in the generating station stacks) and bottom ash (collected at the bottom of boilers). When possible, we sell ash produced by our thermal generating stations to be used for other purposes. Fly ash, for example, can be used as a substitute for cement in concrete, creating a stronger, better quality concrete.
PCB management
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are a group of organic compounds that were used as fluids to cool and insulate electrical transformers and capacitors. The manufacture of PCBs was stopped in 1977, but because their use was so widespread and because electrical equipment can remain in service for a long time, some equipment may still have PCB contamination. Nova Scotia Power has been removing PCBs from its system for a number of years.
Recently, the federal government has announced specific phase-out dates for the removal of equipment containing PCBs and new requirements for the management of materials containing PCBs. Nova Scotia Power has programs in place to meet the requirements of these new regulations.