Just when we need it, a new tool has been developed to help communities decide among different waste management options.A ground-breaking report prepared for the Niagara Region in Ontario showed that the "true cost" of composting organics is two to four times lower than energy-from-waste (EFW) incineration.
The rigorous, peer-reviewed study used a methodology developed by Seattle economist Jeffrey Morris. It also found that disposing of organics in state-of-the-art landfills like Vancouver's, which use methane to generate electricity, has a true cost that is fifty-percent higher than composting.
The "true cost" factors in the environmental and social costs and benefits of different waste management options, allowing policy makers to make good triple-bottom-line decisions.
FROM THE REPORT:
The results show that in the case of the Region of Niagara, the ‘True Costs’ associated with managing organics are ($15.76) and $32.18 per tonne for composting leaf, yard and brush waste, and food waste respectively, $75.14 per tonne for landfill with gas flaring, 49.37 per tonne for landfill with gas recovery for electricity generation, and from $62.72 - $142.72 per tonne for EFW.
1 comment:
Go get 'em girl! Thanks for keeping us posted.
-Kiddo
PS - Have you considered linking to this great New York trash blog... http://everydaytrash.wordpress.com
Here's her first posting:
This is a blog about trash.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
This is a blog about Oscar the Grouch. It’s about the smoke of burning trash piles wafting through every developing country in the world. It’s about the billions of dollars a year spent exporting garbage from one state to another. It’s about diving into a dumpster and coming up with a still-warm burger and three packets of mustard. It’s about detonating landmines with old truck tires and building bookshelves out of milk crates. It’s about barges. It’s about battery acid. It’s about paying sixty bucks for a change purse made of soda can tabs because the label says a women’s group in Latin America glued them together. It’s about sorting plastics. It’s about beaches built on landfills and landfills built on beaches. It’s about the “away” in throw away and the “out” in toss out and the “rid” in get rid of it. This is a blog about the art, money, power, politics, people and literature of garbage. It’s a subject that shocks and amuses me nearly every day, which is about how often I imagine I’ll be posting. I hope you’ll share in the fascination.
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