Adams Mine NO London Landfill YES

There was volumes of discussion about sending our garbage to Adams Mine which even involved citizens of the area and Miller voted against the proposal. Now we have a situation where with no public discussion the lefties on council have decided to spend $500 million dollars, that we don't have, with absolutely no public discussion with the voters of Toronto or London. We have studied to death alternatives to get rid of garbage and just know that this proposal is just another way of the environut lobbyists getting their way rather than local a logical alternatives.

Council approves plan to buy London landfill

CTV.ca News Staff

Toronto city council has approved the purchase of a landfill near London, Ont., as the next home for the city's garbage.

Councillors voted 26-12 Tuesday night in favour of the proposal to buy Green Lane landfill in Southwold Township.

The move, which had been recommended in a city staff report, will cost Toronto about $500 million.

More details were not immediately known.

"(The landfill) allows us not to be threatened by border closures, but allows us to continue our terrific work through our environmental assessment with our citizens to find long-run solutions for Toronto's waste management challenges," Mayor David Miller said at city hall earlier in the day.

The plan outraged some councillors.

"We're going to ship our garbage 200 kilometres out of the city ... they're going to hate us there," Coun. David Shiner told reporters.

"Everyone's going to hate us because we're not taking care of our waste, we're buying another hole in the ground."

Green Lane already accepts 320,000 tonnes of garbage from Toronto and southwestern Ontario municipalities each year.

The company submitted a bid to take the remainder of Toronto's annual trash pile -- which is another 700,000 tonnes.

City council had to make the decision Tuesday because if the letter of intent had not been sent by Wednesday, the offer would have been void.

That upset some councillors, who felt more time was needed for debate.

London Mayor Anne Marie DeCicco-Best was not happy with the proposal.

"It would be like Montreal making a decision to bring all of its garbage to Toronto. Toronto would not be any more pleased," she said.

The Green Lane site has the capacity to accept Toronto's trash for at least 20 years.

Toronto currently hauls 83 truckloads of trash every day across the border to Michigan. The Green Lane plan will appease some U.S. politicians who have been trying to stop the shipments.

Toronto has committed to stop sending its trash to Michigan by 2010.

Green Lane, which has been operating since 1978, has 44 hectares approved for landfilling, according to the company's website.

The landfill has its own leachate treatment facility, a system that captures the liquid produced when waste rots.

Green Lane also has a methane gas collection system, which turns methane into energy.

Removing the gas and liquid makes the waste more environmentally friendly, the company says.

With files from CTV Toronto's Alicia Kay-Markson and Janice Golding