County hires Stantec to chart new waste management

New Tecumseth Free Press Online October 29, 2009
Simcoe County will pay Stantec Consultants $202,206 to “assist” in the development of a plan to deal with waste management over the next 20 years.
Specifically, according to the County’s press release, Stantec has been retained to “improve the County’s waste diversion programs and provide short and long-term options for the disposal of waste.”
Simcoe County is responsible for residential waste collection and disposal on behalf of its 16 member municipalities, including New Tecumseth.
The move follows the highly publicized North Simcoe Site 41 landfill fight between the County led by its Warden Tony Guergis who was pushing forward with the dump’s construction, and an opposition that grew from Tiny Township residents and First Nations citizens to include national organizations. Last month bowing to pressure, County councillors voted to terminate Site 41.
Stantec’s role will be to “investigate programs, consider various waste systems and make recommendations to County council to ensure an integrated and sustainable approach to solid waste management in the County of Simcoe for the foreseeable future.”
The County has approximately 10 years of disposal capacity created from mining initiatives and increased waste diversion programs such as last year’s introduction of the green bin organics collection. Public input is noted as being a component of this latest study.
“Stantec has a strong waste services practice in Ontario offering services to all levels of government, either as Stantec or through the former Jacques Whitford that was purchased by Stantec in January 2009,” according to the press release. “These services include all activities from planning through to implementation for diversion initiatives such as source separated organic systems, recycling facilities, market studies and the policy and program changes needed to go beyond 60 per cent diversion.
They also include disposal initiatives ranging from environmental and operational improvements to small landfill sites, to approvals and implementation of new large-scale energy from waste facilities. Stantec has direct experience assessing the potential environmental performance of a range of technologies and approaches that could be viable for consideration by the County.
The Stantec team for this project includes two sub-consultants, Entec Consulting Ltd. that has widely recognized expertise in diversion both in Ontario and abroad and Bacopo Environmental Solutions, a consulting firm based in the Greater Toronto Area that has direct experience with planning for zero waste.”
Simcoe County’s current waste disposal policy includes a prohibition on the importing and exporting of residential household waste, and on incineration. It’s expected these measures will be included as part of the broader picture of options.