Cities defecting from Metro's incinerator plan

Two data points don't make a trend yet, but Metro staff are probably not going to be pleased that a second city appears to be defecting from the region's incinerator plan.

Coquitlam Council's Standing Committee on Energy, Utilities and Environment received a report on Monday that is sharply critical of assumptions in Metro's proposed waste management plan and recommends asking the Metro Board to develop a better case for building incinerators.

The report presents a number of "issues that are yet to be resolved," mainly relating to Metro's projections of the actual cost of incineration compared to other options. The report calls for Metro to either put out a request for proposals with detailed cost estimates or have an independent review of Metro staff's assumptions.

Cost and risk are important issues for the region's municipalities.

"Local ratepayers will have to carry the full cost of capital and operations [of new disposal facilities] as it is highly unlikely that other levels of government will participate in capital cost-sharing, unlike in other Metro Vancouver services where senior governments often assist with capital costs."

(Metro's draft plan proposes senior government financial support.)

The report also covers a number of measures that Coquitlam is undertaking right now to reduce waste, including a going city-wide with a comprehensive composting program. A successful pilot this year found that the city-wide program could cut disposal costs by $70K per year.

Pic: Lou Sekora, long-time Coquitlam politician who leads the city's Regional Solid Waste Solutions Standing Committee appointed by the Mayor.

Will Vancouver come from behind to win gold?

You might have noticed I took 2 weeks off. It was time well spent cleaning the garage -- and watching the unfolding of our remarkable Olympics from a distance.

When I left my desk back in the darkness of February, when the Olympics were still a legitimate subject for whining, the one bright spot was that Metro Vancouver's incinerator plan seemed to be coming off the rails.

There was no more "landfill crisis" driving the construction of garbage burners because the province extended the life of the Cache Creek Landfill. On top of that, the recession had clearly taken a big bite out of the garbage. I learned today that the shipments of trash to Cache Creek are down from forty truckloads a day to 28. Cities that had foolishly invested in incinerators are running out of fuel.

And now I come back to my desk, flush from our community's truly endearing success hosting the Winter Olympics (Transit is Fun!) and, like everyone else, I am feeling that we are capable of achieving great things.

The first email I open this week tells me that the City of Vancouver is going to hit the ground running and bump Port Coquitlam from the top podium in Zero Waste. A staff report will go to Vancouver City Council tomorrow setting out a 3-step program for cutting our waste in half.

By this time next year, residential garbage service will be scaled back from weekly to bi-weekly. How will we do it? By getting serious about food waste. Vancouver has drunk the kool-ade, as they say. PoCo got off the blocks first, but we are going to come from behind and win gold.

Kelly Sinoski reports in today's Vancouver Sun that the field of contenders in the Food Scrap Composting race is getting crowded, with a half-dozen cities rolling out new programs. But what will give Vancouver the edge, based on this report, is the staff's recommendation to seriously beef up communications and "community based social marketing."

What drives excellence in any race is good training. It looks like the City is ready to invest in helping us Own the Podium.

Port Coquitlam Mayor understands composting, now we just have to help him understand incineration...

Port Coquitlam's mayor looks good in bright green. And he earns his colours with his community's leadership in food scraps composting.

His city was the first in the region to give it a try last year, when he was on Council. Today he was a guest on Metro Vancouver's Zero Waste Breakfast panel talking about what it was like to be the Mayor taking heat for showing leadership. This month PoCo expands the program to include all kitchen waste (not just raw fruits and vegetables).

Moore said the biggest pushback was when the City switched the waste collection schedule.

Instead of collecting trash weekly and yard waste bi-weekly, they now empty the food scraps/yard waste bin weekly and the trash every other week. Citizens apparently inundated their Mayor with angry emails.

They saw this as a "reduction in service" -- until Mayor Moore phoned each angry citizen back and assured them it was the same level of service as before -- only better!

They still pick up the stuff that smells bad every week. And, of course, the trash can wait the extra week because there's less of it and it smells great!

I asked Mayor Moore if he didn't think Metro Vancouver should reconsider building big incinerators, now that our waste was dropping so fast. His reply was muddled, but the message came through that deep down he doesn't think the rest of us are going to be such super composters as his citizens (let's just show him!) and he hasn't given enough thought to incinerators to take a clear stand.

I have confidence that Mayor Moore will be a quick study. He will get it that once all the nice clean organics are gone from the trash what's left will be things that we probably shouldn't be burning at all.

Right after the Zero Waste Breakfast, Metro hosted a webinar where Dennis Rannahan said we'd be burning "composites," contaminated waste (meaning: trash that people failed to sort), plastics, textiles... Who knows what's in that stuff?? Do we want to blow it into the sky?

Maybe Mayor Gregor and Mayor Greg should have a chat. Greg can help Gregor get moving on his long-promised food scraps program (words, words, words....) and Gregor can explain why his Vision party rejected incineration on Zero Waste Vancouver's survey last fall.

Then they can both commiserate about the problem where they both committed to make a difference: homelessness.

Make no mistake, the same basic attitudes underlie both our trash problem and our homeless problem. And would we consider putting 30% of the homeless in incinerators?

Pic: Mayor Moore's blog - send him a line.