Our Sister City, Milan, Promotes Incineration

While in Toronto we are buying landfill sites to dump our garbage in someone elses backyard. Burn garbage at home, how much truck traffic will this take off our highways? Use the heat generated to supply electricity to local businesses and homes, how many coal fired plants could we close? Are these green initiatives that Mayor Miller is recommending? DON'T HOLD YOUR BREATH!

What Milan can teach us
By SUE-ANN LEVY

You've got to hand it to Corrado Paina, executive director of the Italian Chamber of Commerce.

He's not content to let Milan rest on its laurels as a European centre of fashion, design and culture -- and home to top designers like Ottavio Missoni and Giorgio Armani.

He thinks Toronto's sister city -- an international partnership forged in 2003 -- has plenty to impart to Hogtown on the subject of trash.

So when he leads his next mission, comprised of journalists, including myself, as guests of the Chamber to Milan next week, it will be to showcase the region's state-of-the-art waste-to-energy incineration plants.

While he freely admits he is not an expert, Paina says there is a "constellation of incinerators" around Milan and Turin, all built through public-private partnerships, which are very advanced and have pretty low emissions.

"We don't understand why this issue is not part of the public discussion (at City Hall)," he said. "We think we can bring a contribution to the discussion."

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