Garbage issues can’t just be thrown away

Barrie Examiner May 28 — So now what?
Site 41, the North Simcoe Landfill, will no longer even be considered as a dump for Simcoe County waste. Last summer, county council bowed to overwhelming public pressure and reversed its position on the Tiny Township site, deciding it would not be a landfill.
And on Tuesday the same council asked Ontario’s Environment Ministry to revoke the Certificate of Approval necessary to operate Site 41 as a landfill — which the MOE did the very same day.
Covenants have been placed on this land to ensure it cannot be used for waste management purposes in the future, except for residential septic or sewage systems.
This land will be returned to its original zoning, which is agricultural.
And county council will have staff prepare a report on this property’s sale.
A motion to sell Site 41 to Tiny Township was defeated, in part, because its council has not considered this notion and requires further information to consider it.
Which pretty much covers it. Sixty hectares of prime farm land, with a pure source of water beneath it, has been saved by a grass-roots protest.
One flip side, however, is that the county has spent an estimated $13.7 million developing Site 41 as a landfill.
Some of that will be recouped if the land is sold. But the real problem is that Simcoe County residents are still producing garbage and it needs to go somewhere.
Site 41 was going to be that somewhere, or at least one of the somewheres.
And there is a gun, of sorts, pointed at the county’s head (figuratively speaking, of course).
At the beginning of 2009, only three of the county’s six landfills — Nottawasaga, Oro and Tosorontio — had remaining capacity, about 767,000 cubic metres. With about 110,000 cubic metres of capacity being used last year, the math alone shows the need.
The county’s short-term options are to modify existing landfills, to increase their capacity, or to use landfills outside Simcoe.
But the county’s waste management steering committee is making its recommendations next month.
As county councillors were discussing Site 41 Tuesday, there was also talk about other options for Simcoe’s waste. Incineration and a zero waste policy were mentioned, but both choices seem years away.
Incineration is relatively unknown, in terms of what the accepted standards are and what types of approvals are required.
And a zero-waste policy sounds great, except that after years of recycling cans, bottles, plastics, newspapers, cardboard, organics, etc., garbage is still being produced.
Exactly how to get to zero waste is a problem which won’t be solved easily.
The status quo is obviously unacceptable, and unsustainable.
Which is why the waste management steering committee’s recommendations, and how to implement them, are so crucial.
This county council needs to at least have solutions on its plate, and being considered, before the Oct. 25 municipal elections.
But ultimately it will be the next county council which decides what to do with Simcoe’s future waste, a future which is arriving all too quickly.
That Site 41 is longer an option is the people’s choice. It does not, however, solve the problem of what Simcoe County is to do with its waste.