Pictured from left to right: Professor Andrew Vreugdenhil, Darren Harper, Paul Pede, Honorable Maryam Monsef, Emily Whetung-MacInnes, Gary Bunio, Marvin Pelletier, John Knight. Courtesy of Trent University.

Clean tech company Carbonix received a $3.1 million investment from Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) on July 15 to help scale up production on its activated carbon used to treat industrial waste streams such as mine tailings. It comes on top of an initial investment of $120,000 from NRCan’s Indigenous Forestry Initiative and Indigenous Services Canada’s Strategic Partnerships Initiative.

Carbonix’s pilot project aims to accelerate the removal of contaminants from the environment and speed up land reclamation. Beyond cleaning up the environment, those leading the company, based in the Fort Williams First Nation in western Ontario, believe their approach offers a better method for building trust with the Indigenous communities often most affected by legacy mining sites.