WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - A garbage sorting plant in Edmonton, Alberta will be home to an ethanol facility that will turn 100,000 tonnes of plastic, cardboard and paper into the fuel additive starting in 2010, an official involved in the project said on Friday.

The C$70-million ($69.3-million) plant will produce 36 million liters of ethanol per year, making it the world’s first industrial scale ethanol plant using waste as a feedstock, said Don Pierce of Greenfield Ethanol.

“Clearly in any new area, you’ve got to walk before you run,” Pierce said, noting the plant’s production will be small compared with grain-based ethanol facilities.

Privately held Greenfield produces 350 million liters of ethanol at plants in Ontario and Quebec, and is developing other projects in Eastern Canada.

It will start by shipping waste from Edmonton to a 4-million-liter demonstration plant in Westbury, Quebec, being built by its partner, Enerkem Inc, Pierce said.

The city of Edmonton and the Alberta government are contributing C$20 million to the facility, he said.

($1=$1.01 Canadian)