No joke - incinerators aren’t the way to go
Beyond composting and recycling, I bet most of us don’t give much thought to where the rest of our growing mountain of garbage is going - we trust that municipal officials will come up with a solution for the rest and then turn our attention to the myriad of other environmental issues on our plate.
But garbage is big business - and the biggest businesses poised to benefit from our disinterest are waste-to-energy facilities (incinerators). In fact, funding being allocated for incineration in Metro Vancouver’s Solid Waste management plan is almost 10 times what it is for composting and waste reduction. With so much at stake, you can bet that bidding firms are courting municipal officials to see things their way.
Earlier this year, Metro Vancouver issued an RFP to build six additional incinerators as part of a $3 billion dollar waste management plan for the region. Although incinerators do reduce the size and volume of waste, the CO2 that results from burning garbage gets emitted back into the atmosphere leaving us in worse shape than when we started. And they cost more.
But as always the cheaper and more efficient means of addressing a problem gets lost in the shuffle - in this case it’s composting that’s getting short shrift. Studies show that composting is two to four times cheaper than incinerating and does not add to our greenhouse gas emissions. And getting more people to compost would also be a very powerful way of heightening individual awareness about how much garbage each of us produces.
I urge you to call on the region to implement an organics waste program and to learn more about it and about incinerators from Zero Waste Vancouver’s Waste incinerator backgrounder. And while you’re at it, take a look at their fascinating slide show on scavenging and garbage collection since the early 20th century.
This being an election year in municipalities across the region it is one of the few times politicians may really listen. The schedule for Metro Vancouver public hearings is here.
Good work, DJ….timely information & well presented. I’ve Bookmarked this blog & will check out some on your Blogroll.
Angus James
April 2, 2008
Hey DJ, great blog.
Just some more food for thought on incinerators, though. Although they create more GHG’s than composting, they still create less than trucking the waste up to Cache Creek in hundreds of semi-trailers a day.
So, although I’m not thrilled with the thought of incineration, it sure beats the Ashcroft/Cache Creek landfill option, and if incinerators can be used to generate power (which they can) it lessens overall GHGs even more…
Jennifer
April 2, 2008
Hi Jennifer,
Yes - from what I understand, trucking seems to be worst emitter of ghg emissions of any of the garbage removal options. But it seems like incinerating also has some serious problems and that Metro Vancouver (aka GVRD) wants to make people feel that all our waste woes will be eliminated by spending $3B on incinerators instead of a lot less on educational and supporting programs for recycling and composting. I am suspicious because there’s obviously so much money at stake. In fact, this is probably what makes me most skeptical about the waste-to-energy companies’ claims.
Of course cutting back on consumption is the crucial part of the whole puzzle but it’ll take awhile for that one to sink in unfortunately.
edgymama
April 4, 2008