Ontario OKs huge incinerator

The incinerator industry is gloating after wearing down public opposition to a huge, quarter-billion dollar garbage burning plant that is now going to be built in the small community of Clarington. Ontario.

It's a zero-risk venture for the incineration industry giant Covanta energy.

The project is going to be "funded and owned" by the citizens of the York and Durham regions. This deal means guaranteed earnings for Covanta, with all the risk and cost borne by the public.

This is the same path that Metro Vancouver has chosen in its solid waste plan that got the green light from the provincial government last month. But the story isn't over yet.

We do things differently in BC.

Incineration is a natural component of the traditional "integrated waste management" system that still flourishes in Ontario and other jurisdictions. Integrated waste management combines garbage and recycling programs under the umbrella of muncipal services.

Cities operate recycling trucks alongside garbage trucks, recycling plants alongside landfills and incinerators. It all falls on the municipality's shoulders to sort it out and dispose of it responsibly.

It's an end-0f-pipe treatment system that ensures waste doesn't pile up in the streets. But it has failed to make any dent on the overproduction and overconsumption of throw-away products and packaging that is driving global warming and depleting natural resources.

Incinerators are just a more efficient system for detroying the evidence of our overconsumption.

But there is a revolution happening in BC. We are making producers responsible for taking back their throw-away products and packaging.

We won't need big municipal incinerators any more.

Unless we are foolish enough to spend public money and incur public risk to provide producers with an easy way to get rid the stuff they take back from us.

Who would win then?

More handwriting on the wall

This week Canadian Springs made big headlines in Ontario by announcing that they will charge refundable deposits on bottles they deliver to customers. The new program is rolling out in Ontario, BC and the Maritime provinces.

It won't make much of a splash here or in the Maritimes. We already have refundable deposits on water bottles.

But Canadian Springs is really rocking the boat in Ontario. The beverage industry there has been fighting refundable deposits for twenty years. Ontario is still the only province in Canada besides Manitoba where consumers don't get a cash reward for recycling.

The defection of Canadian Springs is one more sign that the tide is going out for the shaky enterprise of collecting bottles and cans in the Blue Box.

Why send diesel trucks door to door to collect bubbles of air, when you can support a local hockey team with a bottle drive instead?

Pic: Eco-friendly graffiti in Greece

Two Ontario cities agree not to pursue incineration

Two Ontario communities, Niagara and Hamilton, have made a commitment to focus on waste reduction instead of disposal.

Niagara Region and the City of Hamilton teamed up four years ago to find a common solution to "a growing global concern: limited landfill space."

They looked at 8 options for disposing of their excess garbage, narrowed the choices down to three. One was "thermal treatment" (waste-to-energy incineration or gasification).

But last Friday the Working Group set up to oversee the joint Waste Plan process received a staff report that threw the process into reverse. The two communities' managers of waste planning recommended that the communities focus on waste diversion instead.

The staff report outlined specific, tangible steps that each community can take to increase the amount of waste they recover, reducing the amount going to landfills.

Rather than pursuing expensive new disposal plants as other Ontario communities are doing (see details in the Appendix of the report), Niagara and Hamilton are going to push for waste reduction.

Good for you, Hamilton and Niagara!

I'm coming to stay with you in September

That was the message on a notice sent out to residents of Newmarket ON to introduce "Binny," the container that the city would use to collect food waste in its new composting program.

The program started in September 2007. By November the town was diverting 78% of its waste from the landfill.

Can we do this here?

pic: http://www.wastedfood.com/2007/11/01/win-win-thanks-to-a-bin/