Packed House for Wasaga Beach Waste Meeting

by Phil Birchard 97.7 The Beach Radio February 10 2010
What to do with waste in Simcoe County?
That was the topic of discussion in Wasaga Beach Tuesday night as officials prepare for another waste meeting in Midland today (Wednesday).
It was standing room only at the RecPlex for the meeting designed to answer questions that the public had about what the county is doing with their waste.
The County told those at the meeting that their goal of the waste management strategy is to come up with a long term waste management system.
The goal of the series of public meetings is to get input to help shape that strategy.
The county is now in step two in the 4 step process of coming up with a plan to deal with waste in the future.
Step 3 is finding a preferred system, and step 4 is an implementation assessment.
Some of the waste management options presented by the county were to get other counties to take garbage from Simcoe, or even banning commercial garbage from the landfills in Simcoe so they would last longer.
Increasing the county’s waste diversion rate was also one of the points that Simcoe stressed to people at the meeting.
The county is currently at 54 percent, which means there is only about 5-6 year left until the landfills are at capacity.
People at the meeting expressed some concern however.
Some people were outraged that the county used water bottles and paper coffee cups at the meeting, with one woman telling the presenters that the county had to lead by example.
Rob McCullough is the Director of Environmental Services for Simcoe County.
He says it’s all about mutual compromise and respect, and the waste strategy is designed to work with people in Simcoe County to increase waste diversion, and come up with common goal about waste management.
McCullough says although the Site 41 battle didn’t force county council to focus on waste management, because they already were.
But he adds that Site 41 has put waste management and waste diversion in the front of everyone’s mind in Simcoe County, and it’s also the topic that everyone wants to find common ground on.
He says waste is everyone’s responsibility, because the county has to manage it, even though it doesn’t create it.
McCullough says it’s up to both the county and residents to come up with a good system to deal with waste.