Sustainable Development Goals
Location:
Greater Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Project Status:
Feasibility study and project-development phase completed
Project Basis:
Local fuel-production concept for 5,000 tonnes per year of mixed waste plastics, approximately 15 tonnes per day
Organizations Involved:
BDC, EDC, Dow Chemical, Green Capital, Newalta, GVRD, several local recyclers
Services / Equipment:
Design & Engineering, Due Diligence, Supply Chain Management, Component Supply
KleanFuels Canada defined a complete plastic-to-fuel business - with the fuel buyers lined up during the development work itself. Through completed feasibility and project development in Greater Vancouver, Klean connected a local supply of 5,000 tonnes of waste plastics per year with a continuous conversion process and reported agreements to sell the recovered fuel, targeting roughly 5 million litres of diesel-grade and heating-oil output annually.
The commercial proposition was straightforward: recover the hydrocarbon value in plastics with limited recycling outlets and connect that output with local fuel demand. Klean’s contribution combined technology, engineering, supply-chain relationships and product-market development to give that opportunity a defined project basis.
The development focused on plastic streams that presented a difficult commercial problem for the Greater Vancouver region: agricultural films such as silage wrap, multilayer packaging, contaminated industrial plastics and residues from recycling operations. These materials could retain substantial hydrocarbon value while lacking an attractive local recycling outlet.
For waste holders, disposal represented a lost resource. For a project developer, that resource only became commercially useful when the available material could be matched with a suitable conversion process and a saleable product.
The challenge was therefore to connect three markets: the businesses managing waste plastics, the technology capable of processing suitable material and the customers purchasing fuel. Feedstock characteristics, processing requirements and fuel specifications all influenced the equipment and commercial arrangements needed.
Klean completed feasibility and project-development work for the KleanFuels Canada initiative. Its recorded scope included design and engineering, due diligence, supply-chain management and component supply.
The concept paired a locally sourced waste stream with local fuel sales. Relationships within British Columbia’s plastic-recycling and fuel-retailing industries provided access to both sides of that business. This gave the development a practical commercial focus: how suitable plastics could enter the process, and where the resulting products could be sold.
Apply continuous conversion experience to the fuel objective
The proposed process drew on Japanese commercial technology experience. It used continuous liquefaction, indirect heating and catalytic conversion to break down plastic into hydrocarbon vapours, followed by cooling and condensation to recover liquid products.
Klean’s technology description cites approximately 950 litres of fuel per tonne of waste plastic. This is a technology-reference figure; project production depends on the feedstock and configured process. The development targeted diesel-grade distillate and heating-oil products, connecting resource recovery with established fuel applications.
The intended product determines the value of the process. Producing a specified fuel requires the appropriate separation, upgrading and quality control for that market. Klean’s engineering and due-diligence capability supports the selection of a complete system around those requirements.
Bring fuel buyers into the development case
Klean’s project record reports that agreements had been established to sell fuel products locally. This is a significant commercial feature: the development work addressed the customer for the recovered product alongside the technology and waste-supply opportunity.
For an investor or waste-sector partner, that connection matters. A production estimate becomes more useful when considered against a defined product, purchasing requirements and a route to market. Local industry relationships helped give the KleanFuels concept that commercial context.
Combine project development with wider industrial collaboration
Klean’s broader plastics-recovery work also included collaboration with Dow Chemical. A 2013 announcement recorded the extension of a three-year letter of intent to combine technology, knowledge and resources for waste-plastics recovery.
The completed feasibility and development work established a project concept with a stated processing scale, estimated outputs, local supply-chain relationships and reported fuel-sales agreements. These are tangible development achievements for a business seeking to turn residual plastics into a local energy resource.
The original project basis and estimates were:
The wider proposition included displacement of virgin fossil resources, employment and local economic activity. The value of the completed work was to define the opportunity around the material, process and market needed to pursue those benefits.
A further milestone in Klean’s Canadian development work
In a separate Canadian project, Klean announced completion of a Detailed Feasibility Study for a 10,000-tonne-per-year plastic-pyrolysis development with Terragreen Investments in Abbotsford. The July 2025 announcement also reported initial funding secured, a finalized site and feedstock arranged with Blue Planet Recycling.
The separate development targeted refinery feedstock, applying Klean’s technical and commercial capabilities to another Canadian opportunity.
1. Commercial value begins with the whole project.
KleanFuels combined a defined waste-plastic opportunity, continuous conversion and local fuel-market relationships within completed feasibility and development work.
2. Product-market access belongs at the development stage.
Reported agreements to sell fuel locally strengthened the commercial proposition alongside the process and production estimates.
3. The development approach has wider application.
Klean’s separate Abbotsford DFS with Terragreen demonstrates further Canadian work connecting technology, site and feedstock around a defined project.
These are selected achievements and lessons. Further technical and commercial insights are available through an engagement with Klean.
Your waste-plastic stream may contain the starting point for a fuel or refinery-feedstock business. Klean can help define the process, product and commercial arrangements needed to develop it.
For recyclers and industrial waste holders, the starting point is the available material and its processing suitability. For fuel businesses and project investors, it is the relationship between feedstock cost, achievable output, product specification and market value. Bringing those requirements together is central to Klean’s project-development work.
The appropriate first step is a paid Detailed Equipment Quotation (DEQ), providing the proposed configuration and preliminary technical and commercial basis. A Detailed Feasibility Study (DFS) then develops the project’s viability and supporting arrangements, followed by Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) to prepare the defined project for an investment decision.
Develop Your Plastic-to-Fuel Business with Klean >> GO.
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ABOUT THE INFORMATION PRESENTED
This case describes completed feasibility and project-development work. Processing capacity, fuel production and carbon benefits are project parameters and estimates. The separate Abbotsford development is included as a further Canadian feasibility milestone. Relevant reference-facility information, engineering assumptions and commercial details are available within an agreed engagement and appropriate confidentiality arrangements.
