Let’s be clear. Incineration is NOT waste diversion.
This June 27 Editorial on www.yorkregion.com berates York Region and Local politicians from backing off on a plan, along with Durham Region, to incinerate trash as a waste diversion strategy to meet provincial goals. The goals are necessary because Michigan has objected to taking Ontario’s trash, as well they should.
The Editorial closes, “Residents need to remember who produces the trash and take ownership for its waste.”
Actually, I think that many of the opponents of incineration, including yours truly, know exactly who produces the trash, and who should take ownership. That would be the wholesalers, retailers, packagers, and manufacturers of products sold in the region.
We need laws enforcing Extended Producer Responsibility. ie: if you build it you are responsible for it’s lifecycle.
Until we have politicians at the provincial and federal level who enact such laws, these (ir)responsible parties will continue to get away with dumping their products and packaging into the market, forcing citizens and municipal governments to struggle for a solution for too much waste and no where to put it.
If incineration is to be considered as a “waste diversion” strategy, then we need to call it what it is.
In the same way that a “landfill” is more properly called a “dump”, a place where we can dump the unwanted product of our society under the illusion that it’s gone, “waste diversion” is more properly called “waste conversion.”
In some cases, like green bins and composing, the bio matter is “converted” to soil. This is good.
In the case of incineration of solid waste, the waste is “converted” to carbon dioxide and “dumped” into the atmosphere. Not so good.
Remember carbon dioxide, that invisible climate changing gas that Al Gore and David Suzuki tell us so much about? The one which even our Conservative government concedes must be reduced?
Are we to consider the atmosphere our next free dumping ground?
Incineration is waste conversion, pure and simple.
There is only one viable waste diversion strategy. Stop making waste.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Good to see you joined progressive bloggers, this should up your hits .
Technically “stop making waste” is not a diversion strategy, but rather a reduction strategy.
As far as I can see the only diversion strategies (ie. strategies that divert existing waste from landfills) are the ones that we have currently, recycling, composting, and re-using.
I am a big fan of life-cycle responsibility for manufacturers, but which manufacturer is actually to be made responsible? Which is to say, is the final manufacturer and shipper of the product wholly responsible for everything, including the packaging; or should each company be responsible for their individual components of the product?
A simple example: A can of Coke.
Should Coca-Cola be responsible for the can since they caused their product to be in it and shipped it, or should Continental Can Corp. be responsible for it since they actually created the can in the first place.
This question is the tricky one when it comes to putting this policy in place.
Thoughts?
Good question Jordon, and you’re right, this is what makes this sort of legislation difficult.
In this example though, logic leads me to Coca Cola as the responsible party as they have created the product which people are buying. The can is just packaging, which would not be there were it not for the product. Coca Cola is responsible for their product and the entire packaging chain to bring it to market, including the can.
Coca Cola commissioned Continental Can Corp to create the can for their use. If Coca Cola must ensure the can is collected and recycled, then they have a number of ways to do it. For example, they used to sell Coke in bottles and kids got a deposit return on them. I bought many a chocolate bar using nickels from Coke bottles as a kid. If they choose to have a contract with Continental Can which includes recycling of the can, that’s certainly an acceptable method.
The challenge is writing legislation which puts the responsibility where it belongs, but the fact that it’s difficult is no excuse for not doing it.
Hi Glenn -
Looked you up from your post on greenparty.ca. Very nice web site!
I’ve been quite interested in this topic for the last year or so as a result of a proposed major expansion to a landfill in my community (west of Ottawa; for info see http://nodump.ca/, and do take a look at the youtube video link “Balad of Carp Mountain” – done by a local Green Party member on his own initiative).
On the subject of producer responsibility, the EU has implemented a process for this for electronics since July 1 2006 (see http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/weee/legis_en.htm, specifically the WEEE directive). In this case of electronics, the concept of “electronic product” is defined so that the responsibility is clear for waste ownership. For instance, a resistor is not a product eligible for recovery, but a clock radio is. Ensuring that you are closest to the consumer product is the most effficient in terms of recovery, and the higher value add helps with the recovery cost.
This EU process is converting the world’s electronics production by virtue of it’s requirement to access the EU market. Ironically, companies that accept product stewartship in the EU don’t have to do it in Cananda (or the U.S.).
Regarding incineration, I have been looking into this a bit, and while I don’t feel comfortable with it either, the reality of waste production is that something will be left over after the best case of diversion (reference Canberra, maximizing diversion for many years, at about 70%), and the remainder will either go to landfill or, possibly, incineration. Both are not environmentally neutral, but frankly one consideration that few talk about is that the very low cost of landfill makes the diversion process a more difficult argument economically. The city of Ottawa is cooperating with Plasco is the testing of a prototype plasma gassification system (http://www.plascoenergygroup.com/content.php?cat=tech&subcat=Plasma%20Gasification). While this has it’s own environmental drawbacks, it seems to be much better than incineration, and can be compared to landfills even in the area of gaseous emissions (including GHG). The advantage I see is that it is the “expensive” and low capacity last step that would encourage maximum diversion.
The main challenge for those who are environmentally aware in this space is to be objective. Even recovery and recycling of materials produces waste, so as I see it, to transition to a zero-waste economy we need to understand how to encourage the right behaviours to reduce waste, maximize the recovery of what is wasted, and make what is left over the most expensive we can to dispose of!
Yeah, I’m aware of Plasco’s technology and I understand the benefits of it over straight mass-burn technologies. But these are strictly with respect to other pollutants besides GHG’s. I still contend that any of these technologies are waste conversion into CO2. This may be better than landfill if it avoids methane production, but still avoids the underlying issue that we are allowing those who create the waste to dump the cost on the rest of us. People complain that EPR laws would force those companies to increase prices to deal with the costs, but miss the point that we are paying the cost one way or another in any case. — Glenn
Tyler Blix
Hey G,
Consumer buying practices can affect the level of packaging and waste but it would happen a (w)hole lot faster with legislation. I think there was a time when the quality of the product was more important than pretty packaging and marketing. With the level of competition, and the need to be popular NOW, I can see what would cause this. What people and lawmakers need to do is make less waste more popular. Put our money where our mouth is. Shame that good products with less packaging will be more expensive for a time.
Re: Waste diversion. We can see how well “The Solution to Pollution is Dilution” worked for land and water. I guess if it’s invisible it’s not taking up breathing room. Next, we can fill up the moon, or orbiting garbage barges the size of battleships. THEN, we can fill up TIME, traveling our garbage back or forward in time, filling up caveman’s cave. OH, or dumping it into the molten lava of a forming planet. That way when (if) man forms again, he’ll be so used to the crap in the air and soil and water that “future generations” won’t be in danger!
Sorry, that was a bit of a tangent on the absurdity of some solutions.
Ty
p.s. Daily Show mentioned some anti-environment diatribe by the head of NASA, did you catch that? *(may be reactionary)