A new energy-from-waste project in East Richmond will benefit the environment on two fronts.

The project will not only divert food and yard waste from landfills, it will also convert the organics to gas that can be burned to create the equivalent of one megawatt of energy -- enough to power 1,000 homes.

"This demonstration project is a first for Canada," federal Minister of Natural Resources Christian Paradis said at a press conference Tuesday at the Fraser Richmond Soil and Fibre composting facility at the Fraser Port complex in East Richmond.

"It could potentially be used elsewhere across Canada, diverting thousands of tonnes of food and yard waste from landfills to produce renewable energy."

Harvest Energy Canada -- a Canadian arm of the Massachusetts-based company -- is getting $4 million from Ottawa to build a $12-million digester based at the Fraser Richmond Soil and Fibre composting facility.

The funding comes from the Government of Canada's $795-million Clean Energy Fund, which is intended to promote renewable and clean energy initiatives.

"Actions like these will help us to meet our commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17 per cent from 2005 levels by 2020," Paradis said.

Food waste that used to go into the landfill now goes to East Richmond for composting. Earlier this year, Richmond implemented a curbside collection program for food and yard waste. It is one of several municipalities now diverting about 27,000 tonnes of food and yard waste from landfills each year.

Construction on a new digester is scheduled to begin in the new year with completion slated for the end of 2011.

Using a natural composting process, the digester will produce methane gas. It can then either be used to power a generator to create about a megawatt of electricity, or sold to Terasen gas for home heating.

Steve Aujla, executive vic-president of Fraser Richmond Soil and Fibre -- a subsidiary of Harvest Energy Canada -- said the company has not decided yet whether to use the gas it will create for power generation or for heating.

Currently, only food waste from single family homes are being collected by municipalities. One untapped source is food waste is restaurants, grocery stores and bakeries. While some are already trucking their food waste to Fraser Richmond Soil and Family, not all are.

"The next frontier is to tackle the commercial stream," Aujla said.

"We have a goal in Metro Vancouver to divert 70 per cent of all our garbage into facilities like this, or into recycling, by 2015," said Greg Moore, mayor of Port Coquitlam and chairman of the Metro Vancouver Waste Management Committee.

Moore said Metro Vancouver now diverts 55 per cent of its waste.

"Canada as a whole is at 22 per cent, on average," Moore added. "So we can see that Metro Vancouver is leading across the country and across the world."