There Is Only One Way Mayor Miller & Leftists

on council and & the environuts are going to get the message about garbage and that is when their homes are declared legal landfill sites and they need to put up with the downside of landfill.

City needs lasting solution on trash
We are decades behind some countries who use hi-tech incineration instead of landfills, by Michael Warren

Oct. 9, 2006. 01:00 AM

If any public initiative begs the question "why" it is Mayor David Miller's rush to have the country's largest city continue the medieval practice of managing its waste by burying it in the ground and, once again, in someone else's backyard.

On the surface Miller's pre-election move to have the city acquire the privately held Green Lane environmental landfill south of London seems to solve several persistent problems.

First, it provides a reassuring alternative to the recently imposed restriction that will phase out the shipment of any municipal waste, including Toronto's, to Michigan by 2010. Second, the purchase is being touted by the mayor as one that "will be more or less pay for itself." And it may remove, just in time for the November municipal election, one of Miller's greatest political vulnerabilities, his lack of waste management leadership.So why the wall of worry emanating from so many sources?

The reasons are legion. The prospect of this "world-class city" choosing to dispose of its garbage for the next 20 years by burying it in the ground sets the worst possible environmental example.

Ontario and its hundreds of municipalities are already decades behind most other developed regions of the world when it comes to adopting modern waste disposal technology and using waste feedstock to produce energy.

Adding insult to injury, Toronto's garbage will still be hauled by close to 400 tractor-trailers every day to another community for disposal. The only improvement over the Michigan mess is that the journey west on the 401 highway will be shorter and the garbage will only have to cross municipal and not international borders.

There is also the timing, potential costs and the process used by Miller and council to advance this solution.

Conveniently, the actual cost of purchasing the landfill and using it for Toronto's waste, estimated at between $250 million and $500 million, will not be known until after further negotiations and until well after the next election.

The same applies for any answers about the risks and long-term liabilities associated with owning, operating and using an enormous landfill site in another municipality.

Also, committing the city to this questionable approach during a one-day, no public input, take-it-or-leave-it debate at council is hardly the transparent and accountable decision making process that Miller has held out as a hallmark of his administration.

It is not hard to imagine how the people of London and St. Thomas will feel watching helplessly as hundreds of garbage-laden trucks lumber over their roads to deposit 3.5 million tonnes of Toronto garbage annually in their neighbourhood. So much for the principal of managing your own waste in your own community.

While it is easy to raise genuine concerns about the city's sudden move to acquire the Green Lane landfill, in some respects Miller's actions are understandable. His first obligation as mayor is to his ratepayers and their real and pressing need for an alternative to Michigan.

One can argue that Toronto, like the rest of Ontario's municipalities, is a victim of the McGuinty government's persistent lack of foresight when it comes to facilitating alternative means of waste disposal.

Despite repeated calls from the waste management industry, municipalities, environmental groups and others, minister after minister in the Ontario environment portfolio has failed to put protocols in place for any disposal technique other than landfill. This means that disposal systems, used extensively in other more environmentally conscious countries, which include modern incineration, plasma arc gasification, and energy generation from waste, are extremely difficult to introduce into Ontario.

Even Ontario Environment Commissioner Gordon Miller has criticized the ministry of the environment for its lack of leadership in promoting alternatives to landfills despite strong opposition to creating more garbage dumps.

He said the government's policy to wait until municipalities and system manufacturers have funded and installed new technology before they can apply for MOE approval isn't working.

"They will not take the leadership under these conditions," said Miller, emphasizing that no city will invest millions in a disposal system without reasonable assurance from MOE in advance that they will approve the technology.

MOE argues that it is up to municipalities to work with the private sector to experiment with new disposal systems and once they have been installed and are operational the ministry will decide then, and only then, whether or not to grant a certificate of approval.

Faced with this uncertainty, municipalities like Toronto can be forgiven for opting for the only approach currently sanctioned by the province and that is burying waste wherever you can.

With a very modest MOE investment in researching and accrediting proven disposal technology, the McGuinty government could quickly trigger a partnering between cities and the waste management industry that could result in environmentally safe and local waste disposal across the province within the next few years.

MOE would soon discover that they could readily import the protocols for alternative systems to landfill from countries in Central Europe, Scandinavia, the United States and beyond.

Modern incineration is used throughout Europe. In Switzerland, incinerators are often located within the community creating the waste, so the motivation to practise the 3Rs and to use the most advanced technology is ever-present.

Sweden had the incineration debate that was looming in Toronto three decades ago. There are now more than 30 plants operating throughout that country, many of them producing heat and electricity from waste incineration. Some Swedish cities are getting up to 40 per cent of their electric power from burning waste.

Singapore strictly enforces some of the toughest environmental standards in the world.

Yet it incinerates its waste and uses the resulting slag to build lagoons that enlarge the island state and promote coral reef development.

There is no reason why this province should not be in the forefront of waste disposal technology.

The ministry of the environment could, without great expense, develop protocols based on the world's best, proven systems. This, in turn, would free up municipalities to invite manufacturers whose products met the protocols for different technologies to bid against each other to see who could offer the most cost-effective, local garbage disposal solution.

MOE is currently spending much of its time and money on its ever-expanding regime of rules governing the outdated transportation, storage and burial of our garbage.

It is time for the province to invest in the future of waste disposal, to give our cities the guidance, technical support and encouragement they need to adopt safe and affordable technologies that allow them to manage the garbage they generate within their own borders.

Michael Warren, a former Ontario deputy minister, has also been chief general manager of the Toronto Transit Commission and CEO of Canada Post Corporation. He currently chairs Sunrise Senior Living REIT.