What Metro Vancouver won't tell us

Tonight is the first of three public meetings (see sidebar to the right) that will will tell us what Metro Vancouver won't tell us.

Metro has been pitching its audacious proposal to build up to 6 waste-to-energy incinerators in the region, burning over a million tonnes of garbage each year. It's the centrepiece in the region's draft solid waste management plan.

And our regional politicians have been going along with it every step of the way. As recently as CBC's Early Edition this morning, Surrey Councillor Marvin Hunt was claiming incineration is all the rage in Europe (is this what they told him in Paris).

But Fraser Valley politician Patricia Ross isn't buying it.

She arranged to bring Paul Connett here to do what he did in hundreds of communities across North America during the 1980s: tell the other side.

The downwind communities in the Fraser Valley will learn what's in store for them tonight. The host communities in New Westminster and the Tri-Cities will get their chance tomorrow.

And on Wednesday night, at the Coast Plaza Hotel Ballroom in downtown Vancouver, we'll look at what incineration will cost all of us: more waste, more lost opportunities.

Can our politicians really convince us that Zero Waste means whatever you can't export to the USA, you just burn?

Pic: Clarington Watchdog ~ we are not alone!