Waste management

Imperial recognizes the importance of properly managing waste to minimize potential impact to the environment while using resources more efficiently. Our environmental policy outlines our goal of controlling wastes to below harmful levels and to design, operate and maintain facilities to this end.

In 2021, we updated and enhanced our Project Waste Management Standard, which informs project concept selection and facility design to:

• Ensure that proper management, treatment, and disposal infrastructure is available for all waste from project construction and operations.
• Reduce the quantity of and hazards associated with the waste generated during the operation of new facilities.
• Promote enhanced waste minimization and recycling/ reuse throughout the asset life cycle.

We prioritize waste avoidance when feasible. When waste must be generated, we work to reduce, recover or reuse it whenever possible to reduce volumes requiring disposal. To help ensure waste from our operations is managed responsibly and in a manner that is protective of the environment, all process waste generated from our facilities must be managed at Imperial-audited third‑party facilities.

Year-over-year, the amount of waste we generate varies depending on annual maintenance requirements. However, our objective is to continuously look for ways to minimize waste through practices such as: process changes; raw material changes; material handling, storage, transportation; as well as management of any remaining waste in compliance with applicable regulations.

Advanced recycling

Plastics are an essential part of our everyday life, but they are also a valuable resource that all too often gets wasted. In Canada, close to 80 per cent of all postconsumer plastic ends up in landfill due to two key factors: lack of waste management infrastructure and limits with current mechanical recycling technology. While mechanical recycling is effective for easily sorted, clean plastics, plastics like those found in food packaging or bubble wrap are difficult to recycle using traditional mechanical methods.

That’s where advanced recycling comes in. Advanced recycling helps support a circular economy for plastic by broadening the range of plastics that are recycled. According to a 2022 carbon footprint assessment by Sphera, every tonne of waste plastic processed using our advanced recycling results in at least 19 per cent lower greenhouse gas emissions compared to processing an equal amount of our normal crude-based feedstock. 12 The process involves breaking down plastic waste to its molecular building blocks and effectively transforming the plastic waste into the raw material that can be used in the process of making valuable new products like medical and sporting equipment.

We believe advanced recycling is a necessary complement to mechanical recycling to help society address the plastic waste challenge. We are positioned well through our integrated fuels and chemicals business to support recycling initiatives using advanced recycling technologies. Imperial is evaluating the use of advanced recycling at our Sarnia facility to help address plastic waste in a meaningful way. At full capacity, we could recycle enough plastic waste per year to fill 400 Olympic size swimming pools that would otherwise be destined for the landfill or incineration.

_FOOTNOTES

¹_{Silver Validation for Zero Waste, ExxonMobil Aviation.}