Flax straw used to be viewed as an unwanted waste product by producers with seemingly only two possible outcomes—burn it or let it sit in the field. One company is seeing not only dollar signs in every stalk, but possibilities.
The once wasted flax straw has become the latest environmental darling due to its flexible and valuable applications. Biomass fuel, building materials, animal bedding, fibre, mulch, feed, and bioplastics are a few of the many end-product uses of flax straw, but there’s one catch: somebody needs to process the raw material.
That’s where Saskatchewan-born Prairie Clean Energy steps in, forming a five-year overnight success story. Launched in the midst of the Covid fervor, PCE founder Trevor Thomas devised a way to make good use of the flax straw he watched being burned all around him. Now five years hence, the company headquartered in Regina is renovating a building in Weyburn to become the first processing facility of its kind in the world.
“We chose it because it was an existing building and we could quickly get rolling there,” said PCE President and CEO Mark Cooper. “Renovations are underway, which is good, and should conclude by the end of July, I would think at the latest. Then equipment will be installed in July and August, we’ll be in some form of production in August, and fully in production mode, I think, by the end of September.”
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