Zero Waste group withholds support for waste strategy

By Kate Harries AWARE Simcoe June 23 2010
The county’s waste strategy steering committee endorsed a waste strategy presented yesterday by Janine Ralph, of Stantec, that aims for a 77 per cent diversion rate by 2030  – but it wasn’t unanimous, and Zero Waste Simcoe has refused to support the strategy. While the strategy includes many excellent proposals, “there are two issues here,” said committee vice-chair Gord McKay, who is also chair of Zero Waste Simcoe.
The first, that the strategy estimates that at the end of 20 years, the county will still be producing 50,000 tonnes of garbage annually for disposal.
That’s not a Zero Waste statement, McKay said, and the ZWS board, which reviewed the final document prepared by Stantec last week, voted not to support it.
The other issue was the lack of a ongoing civilian oversight committee to provide public monitoring and participation during the 20-year life of the strategy.
It’s something that McKay has been puishing for in recent steering committee meetings, but was not included in Stantec’s final draft.
McKay told the steeting committee that the strategy calls for Simcoe County residents to fundamentally change behaviour – and that won’t happen with a “top-down” model. Behaviour will only change if residents feel they are driving the strategy, he said.
Ralph told McKay that a 77 per cent diversion rate is the best the county can do given present North American markets for recyclables, and that civilian involvement has been buiilt into the strategy – but oversight rests with council.
Voting in favour of the Stantec document were committee chair Gord Wauchope from Innisfil, Warden Cal Patterson, county councillors Phil Sled from Severn, Bill Duffy from Ramara, Doug Little from Adjala-Tosorontio, and public representatives John Nychuk from Tiny, Mary Munnoch from Adjala-Tosorontio and Mark Guthrie from Clearview.
Voting against were McKay (a Midland town councillor) and Nickolas Rowe from Medonte. Ironically they were the only two members of the committee to take an active part in bringing forward ideas and critiquing the Stantec approach.
Rowe unsuccessfully mounted a last-ditch attempt to include immediate examination of new technologies that will deal with residual garbage and keep it out of landfill sites.
“The dump sites we have are poisoning Simcoe County’s water,” he told his fellow committee members. “I think we have an urgency here.”
Wauchope cut Rowe off. “It’s going to be up to county council to make the final decision,” he said.
Council will discuss the strategy and vote on at at a special meeting next Tuesday, June 29.