When the City of Toronto was forced to turn to Michigan in order to handle its oodles of garbage, I thought that it was, at best, a temporary solution. I thought that the additional cost compared to the (now closed) Keele Valley landfill site north of the city would be enough incentive for the city to look at more innovative ways of handling its trash problem. It’s discouraging that it looks like it will take a vote by Michigan legislators to close the border to Canadian trash to force Toronto to finally consider alternatives. It’s even more discouraging that, so far, the alternatives being considered all amount to different landfills.
You know, this is one counterargument to the suggestion that higher gas prices are going to automatically lead to investment in renewable technologies in short order. We’re forgetting that governments and consumers value more than just cost. They also value convenience. The hydrogen car won’t take off unless fill-up stations are as ubiquitous as petrol stations, and until then, the internal combustion engine will reign supreme even as gasoline tops $5 per litre. Governments care even less about costs than consumers do, and bureaucracies have a lethargy about them that makes innovative thinking almost unthinkable.
But it’s time to get thinking, and I’m almost hoping that Michigan gets the powers it needs to close its border to Canadian trash sooner rather than later, because I suspect it’s going to take a crisis for Toronto (and, through it, other Canadian municipalities) to look at more environmentally sensitive ways of dealing with their trash. Incineration should be on the table (even if thinking so appears to have cost one Toronto official his job). The technology is a lot cleaner today than people give it credit for and given that we’re stuck with smog-producing Nanticoke power plant until 2009 and STILL short of electricity, the idea of burning our garbage for power should be a no brainer.
Heck, why don’t we just convert Nanticoke to burn trash?
Pario at Talk, Talk, Talk tells us of another system called SUBBOR, already tried and tested by the residents of Guelph, and which has successfullly diverted 70% of the city’s trash without landfilling or incineration, and produced power to boot.
Well, what are we waiting for, other than the borders to close to Canadian trash? We have a system, let’s use it. It’s likely the politicians are waiting for a groundswell of interest towards this solution. Lord knows they don’t move on other things unless personal self-interest is involved. The sooner we can communicate to our politicians that their self-interest is involved in this regard, the sooner we can start dealing with our trash sensibly.
October 4, 2005 10:48 PM
I agree with you about the basic logic of incineration. You solve two problems in one: burn excess waste while filling a shortage of supply in power. Seems like a bit of a no-brainer to me. But what do I know?
My understanding is that almost all the alternatives to waste and power have as their most basic obstacle the environmental movement.
They don’t like incineration because it encourages waste production. They don’t like the Adams mine because environmental assessments of its safety simply aren’t good enough. They don’t like nuclear power because, even though its safe, they fear-monger about half the world blowing up if we go that route.
The only solution the environemtalists seem to have is that we use less and create less. But it’s just not going to happen. In the meantime, we’ve got too much garbage we know what to do with, and not enough energy and electricity to meet the needs of an advanced economy and society.
That’s my rant for the day.
October 4, 2005 11:32 PM
I think NIMBYism in general is more responsible for the knee-jerk reaction to incineration than just the generic environmental movement. I studied urban planning and environmental studies at the University of Waterloo, and I received what I felt was a pretty centre-left education. There was a strong commitment to environmental protections. However, the educators did take us down to an incinerator that had been operating in Hamilton for over twenty years, and the company was more than happy to show off how much trash they were able to burn, how good the air quality was, and how they recycled the resulting ash into cobblestones. That alone was enough to tell me that, if further landfills were on the table, then so should incineration.
However, even armed with this knowledge, would you accept having a high-tech incinerator operating two blocks from your children’s school? Maybe you would, but I doubt your neighbours would. And so the search for new landfill sites continues.
October 5, 2005 9:53 AM
Innovative approach
GuelphÔøΩs Wet-Dry recycling program operates in the same manner as a conventional curbside garbage pickup system, except residents are asked to split their waste into wet and dry material. The list of wet material includes food wastes (including meat) and other compostable materials such as diapers, dryer lint and pet feces. The dry material consists of paper, cans, glass, plastics, clothes, shoes and Styrofoam.
Residents are asked to keep their waste separated, collecting the wet material in green-tinted bags and dry material in blue-tinted bags. CUPE members then bring the waste to a processing facility where wet waste is composted and dry waste is sorted and prepared for market. In 1997, almost 40,000 tonnes were processed for a total diversion rate of 58 per cent.
Every year, innovations have improved the service but GuelphÔøΩs recent commitment to keep the program public resulted in the greatest increase in efficiency. In the beginning, workers operated and maintained the facility on a day-to-day basis. They had no control over their workplace situation and no sense of how long their jobs would last. All that changed in March 1998, when the city decided to keep the program public and hired a permanent unionized workforce.
According to Brad Calloway, president of CUPE 241, the local representing the recycling facility workers, it was more than a coincidence that production improved after a permanent workforce was hired. ÔøΩPeople really didnÔøΩt have any ownership of their jobs,ÔøΩ he says. ÔøΩBeing hired on full-time allows them to take an interest in the work theyÔøΩre doing.ÔøΩ
Calloway added that as permanent employees get more familiar with their duties they can suggest ways of improving production.
Earlier this year, the program was given another boost. Because of the recycling facilityÔøΩs excellent diversion rates, Subbor, a Canadian biotech subsidiary, is building a processing plant that will convert much of GuelphÔøΩs remaining waste into methane gas. The gas will then be used to fuel a hydro station and provide power to surrounding communities. The new plant, currently being built alongside the recycling facility, is expected to improve the programÔøΩs diversion rates to 85 per cent. If the plant proves a success, the city will take over its operation after five years.
October 5, 2005 9:55 AM
I’m surprised that there hasn’t been more limitation on the amount of trash residents can set out. Even providing allowance for larger households/multi-household dwellings, it’s astonishing — another missed incentive that would benefit everyone. Here in the north we’re down to three bags a household per week with plans for two to become the limit.
October 5, 2005 9:58 AM
Red Deer does a really good job with waste recycling too. See: http://perc.ca/PEN/2002-10/s-boddy3.html
vicki
October 5, 2005 10:23 AM
“My understanding is that almost all the alternatives to waste and power have as their most basic obstacle the environmental movement.”
I disagree Cyber Menace. The environmental movement spawns innovation. Without it, we’d still have dirty incineration, landfills galore, and stinkin’ air (there may be smog but at least I don’t taste gasoline in the air like I did as a kid). We may have oodles of land, but we shouldn’t be using old tech to dispose of our garbage. Incineration is a no-go in the East End because of memories of the pollution from the old incinerator, and I can’t see the West End ever allowing it.
SUBBOR did try to present its tech to the City several years ago, but I vaguely remember that it could barely make a presentation about setting up a demonstration facility in Toronto or wasn’t even allowed to. The politicians and bureaucrats were fixated on landfill, whether up north or later on in Michigan. The SUBBOR executives were frustrated to put it mildly.
Even today, the media never mention anything other than landfill or incineration. This is when I despair journalists do anything other than read press releases, stick their own spin on it, and publish it, sans any independent research.
The leftists on Council think environmental means making the residents work more. Why? People want to do their part, and those who don’t would do more if it was made easier. Right now wrestling with green bins, grey boxes, bags, and anything else the city will dream up is a bit much, especially after sorting the garbage in every single room. To add insult, the raccoons are so adept at getting into raccoon-proof bins that one has no choice but to get up at the crack of dawn to put out the garbage and watch the men toss the green bags and green bin contents all in the same truck together.
“looks like it will take a vote by Michigan legislators to close the border to Canadian trash to force Toronto to finally consider alternatives.”
I’m not as optimistic as you James — though I’m glad of your viewpoint! We need optimists. And thank you for referencing my post!
We’ve been at crisis point before, or so I thought, and they just went to the easiest solution — hang all the communities along the 401, the air, and the reputation of our city.
Leftist politicians, well, no all of them, are using the environmental movement as an excuse for lazy thinking and to do nothing. I’m fed up.
October 5, 2005 12:32 PM
Should have mentioned that the Guelph Subbor plant is now producing 1% (1000 households) of Guelph’s electrical needs according to CKCO news last night.
October 5, 2005 12:49 PM
I meant 10%.
October 6, 2005 6:48 PM
James,
This is a good post on a topic that has been long ignored or at least not given its due.
I am one of those environmentalists who love looking at new and better ways of looking at these kinds of issues.
You mentioned convenience in this post as a factor in making environmental choices. There is also the “not in my neighborhood” dilemna as well. As far as incineration goes, I am guilty of that. I don’t know enough about it, or perhaps am skeptical about what I have been told to date. I live in the area of Toronto that has the incinerator and I am really leary of having it in my backyard, on the doorstep of the city centre and directly on Lake Ontario. Perhaps it more concern about my own local environment as opposed the larger environmental questions.
I don’t have any answers to the whole garbage question but I am not yet sure that the incineration option (in my neighbourhood) is the way to go.
October 31, 2005 5:44 PM
Oposition to incineration and waste from energy has more to do with unknown health effects of extremely toxic emissions like Dioxins and Furans and the tendency of incineration proponents to down play the impact of their emission loads of Dioxins and Furans.