Zero Waste Simcoe asks Simcoe County to reconsider recommending garbage export

News release from Zero Waste Simcoe December 3 2012

On November 14, 2012  the Corporate Services Committee of the Simcoe County Council recommended that Simcoe County staff be authorized to negotiate with Algonquin Power an Energy from Waste (EFW) (electricity- to- the- grid) business to export a portion of the County’s curbside garbage within the parameters outlined in Item CS 12-166.

Watch dog group Zero Waste Simcoe is aware that a large portion of the public believe that electricity is just something that is always there. How it is generated is invisible because of the perception that “electricity is  just electricity”.  If it still comes on when the switch is turned on, then how it is generated is seems inconsequential.

Simcoe County, after it failed to open a new landfill at its infamous Site 41, rescinded its local disposal bylaw.

In 1992 the Region of Peel opened a conventional incinerator in Brampton,; it currently processes about 175,000 tonnes a year, including waste from Caledon. Owned by Algonquin Power , the company has  made presentations to Simcoe, aimed at securing some 47,000 tonnes of its waste.

The Algonquin Power Energy from Waste facilities’ consultants’ have now identified that the company is about to be granted an amendment to its existing Certificate of Approval (C of A) allowing it to accept waste from businesses and municipalities throughout Ontario. In addition, the consultants have advised Simcoe County that Algonquin Power Energy From Waste Inc is seeking additional garbage to run through their incinerator as of November 1, 2012.  

Zero Waste Simcoe feels that Simcoe County’s recommendation to consider exporting its garbage is extremely short sighted. Rather than exporting garbage, ZWS urges Simcoe County leaders to avoid asking–’where do we put the garbage?’ and instead answer a more important question– ‘how can we contribute to not making garbage in the first place?’

The Zero Waste philosophy promotes the rethinking of product life cycles so all components can be reused.

The worst strike against  Simcoe County’s  recommendation item CS 12-166 is that it perpetuates the never ending cycle of using the earth’s resources, spending vast amounts of energy processing them in factories and shipping them around the globe, where they end up lost – buried in a landfill, burned or “thermally” treated.

Peter Stubbins, Chair of Zero Waste Simcoe, has a blunt observation. “We have been lulled into thinking garbage is just part of our landscape. Our leaders have to become proactive in the spirit of zero waste philosophies being increasingly adopted globally and move in the direction of eliminating it at source as much as possible and as fast as possible. Exporting garbage is the wrong message- it  is not a sustainable solution.”