Waste Management has begun construction of a $13 million landfill gas-to-energy facility near Drummondville, Quebec.

The new facility draws from Waste Management’s landfill in the Saint-Nicéphore district of Drummondville. It will generate 7.6 megawatts of electricity annually, enough to power the equivalent of 6,500 homes, the company said in a press release. Also, the heat produced by the plant’s engines also will be recovered and used to heat a greenhouse complex.

Waste Management expects the plant to begin operations in 2012.

The initiative is part of a larger project called the Environmental and Energy Complex in Drummondville.  The plan is for an advanced waste solutions complex that includes a construction and demolition material facility, a new environmentally engineered landfill area, an organics processing facility and an eco-center.

“Today across our organization, we manage waste for its resource potential,” said Martin Dussault, Waste Management’s director of public affairs in Quebec.

The new operations are expected to create 50 jobs.