Council to decide on plastic bag action

Today Zero Waste Vancouver will be on the speaker's list, along with many other organizations and concerned individual citizens, as City Council considers a motion to "phase out" plastic bags.

Will our city join the growing number of communities that are taking tough action to curb plastic bag use?

This blog has taken note of recent landmark legislation in places as diverse as China and Ireland, London UK and Leaf Rapids MB. Even Uganda has a law banning plastic bags.

The sanctions range from taxes (Ireland) to outright bans (Leaf Rapids) to retailer take-back requirements (New York City) to requirements that retailers use only biodegradable bags (San Francisco).

Politicians are safe in taking strong action on this issue, because they are responding to a deep public concern. The plastic bag has become an object of revulsion all over the world.

Photo documentation of the impacts on wildlife has put the plastics industry and the retail industry on notice: do something to clean up your act or lose the privilege of doing business.

Name-brand retailers like Ikea and Whole Foods are scrambling to claim the high ground, while their industry associations still insist that public education will solve the problem (plastic bags don't litter, people litter...).

The Retail Council's proposed fixes for Vancouver do not include retailer take-back. They haven't grasped the principle of cradle-to-cradle recycling, where producers are expected to provide take-back and recycling, rather than counting on public garbage services.

If you can handle it, here are some great online sources of ghastly photos of plastic's impact on marine life:

Planet Ark still photos

Message in the Waves videos

pic: http://www.answers.com/topic/vancouver-city-hall

Composting on the Gulf Islands?

Australia's Lord Howe Island may have road-tested a solution for organic wastes on our Gulf Islands. Like the Gulf Islands, all of Australia is challenged with water and soil shortages. They needed a solution that feeds the earth instead of the sky.

Lord Howe Island is an independent principality of Australia, with around 300 locals and 450 vistors at any one time. It is also a world heritage listed region.

Here's what they are doing with their organic wastes. They installed (with aid from other levels of government) a Vertical Composting Unit (VCU) that employs a gravity-feed system to process 0.8 to 1.2 tonnes of organics a day to produce 0.5 - 0.75 tonnes of compost that locals use in their gardens. The VCU can handle all "putrescibles" including sewage sludge.

The composting program is part of a "cost efficient waste minimisation strategy" proposed in a comprehensive study done in the late 1990s.

pic: http://www.orientpacific.com.au/destinations/lord-howe-island/index.php

Learning from the starlings!

How does social change happen? How will we shift our collective destiny to avoid disaster ahead? Let's do what the starlings do.

Research in the UK cracked the starlings' secret for coordinating their movements so vast flocks can veer around in complex formations without crashing into each other, at the same time protecting themselves against predators.

Turns out what each starling does is keep track of the movements of just seven other birds. This forms an interlocking network of coordinated movements that protects not only the individual birds but the whole flock.

There's a message here about social change. Each of us, seven other people, and together we can make change without waiting for "them" to solve our problems for us.

pic: http://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/h/hamwall/about.asp

Feed the earth or the atmosphere?

Metro Vancouver has set us firmly on track to cut our waste by 70% ~ hats off to the political leaders of all political stripes for their vision in setting us on this course!

Now the question arises: what will we do with the other 30%.

The incinerator salesmen are all lined up offering us a solution that looks too good to be true: we can make money by selling garbage-fueled energy.

Incineration doesn't get rid of waste completely, they concede, since at least one tonne for every five going into the plant emerges at the other end as ash that must be disposed of.

Sticker shock is another challenge ~ people of our region are going to have to really love incinerators to be willing to pay the cost of building them. (More about that below)

Cities in other parts of the world -- including Halifax NS -- are following a different path. They are setting up simple systems that mechanically and biologically "stabilize" the leftover garbage that can't be recycled. This process reduces the volume of the waste, as well as keeping out hazardous materials. Most notably from a climate change and public safety perspective, it reduces the ability of landfilled garbage to produce the greenhouse gas methane and toxic leachate.

The proponents of "MBT" (mechanical and biological treatment) include environmentalists who see it as a bridging strategy for winding down our landfilling system as we gradually ramp up recycling and composting.

Incinerators lock us into using a machine that feeds the already overburdened sky, while MBT is flexible and will let us benefit from reduced costs as we reduce our waste. Zero Waste Vancouver is researching the experience of these other communities and will be making regular reports to this blog.

(About those costs? A recent European study noted that WTE costs 54% more than landfilling, while an MBT system raises the cost of landfilling by only 8%)

Pic: the Fraser Valley through Michael Kluckner's eyes

Vancouver & Delta will benefit from new plan

An anonymous ZW supporter who was present at today's historic meeting of the Metro Vancouver Board just posted this report:

Yipee!!! The Board endorsed the WMC recommendation today rejecting a last ditch attempt by Vancouver to delay for 60 days. The good news is that the priority endorsed by each speaker was long term waste reduction and environmentally safe ways of handling waste residuals in district as close to source as possible. A good starting point but many more battles to be fought.

It is amazing to me that Vancouver's political leaders were apparently out of the loop when the new plan was negotiated. Councillor Peter Ladner was clearly taken completely by surprise by the CAO's report on Tuesday.

As a constituent, I hasten to assure Ladner and the rest of our elected representatives that I see this as a huge win for both Vancouver and Delta.

The landfill permit is up for renewal shortly. I have heard from knowledgeable sources that the renewal was not going to be a slam-dunk. My hunch is that a sincere commitment and a good plan for diverting biodegradable organics, recyclable materials and hazardous wastes from the landfill will earn many points when the province makes the permit decision.

Not only does the new plan reduce the environmental burdens during the rest of the landfill's life span ~ it also has the potential of shortening its life span, hastening the day when Delta can turn the area into a park. I hope they have an interpretive centre there that will tell the amazing story of how foolish folks were in the 20th Century, when they dumped their discards in a world-renowned domed peat bog.

Vancouver Sun dithers while the rest of us get busy

Metro Vancouver's landmark decision this week to cancel the Ashcroft landfill plan ~ and indeed decline any offers to ship our garbage up to the Interior ~ has the Vancouver Sun editorial board in a dither.

Good thing they're not in charge of managing our waste for us.

The fact is that the sky is not falling. There are sensible solutions to our waste problem that will not drive taxpayers into penury. These are not hypothetical solutions, but programs that are on the ground and delivering results in other communities in Canada and around the world.

These solutions are now within reach in our region, because our political leaders have put the brakes on the misguided plan to truck garbage up the Fraser Canyon.

While the Sun dithers, Zero Waste Vancouver will help deliver solutions that we can point to with pride when we invite the world to our region in 2010. This region was built by people who believed they could get things done and make the world a better place. The story isn't over yet.

New decision tool measures co$t of incineration

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.