Premier Christy Clark’s government has so far avoided taking stands on controversial issues unless pushed, so I was surprised to see Environment Minister Terry Lake come out yesterday with an approval for Metro Vancouver’s garbage plan.
That plan includes a commitment to explore incineration as a big component of the plan, which has provoked a lot of debate among politicians and even various parts of the environmental community.
Not surprisingly, the announcement produced anguished responses from opponents and qualified satisfaction from those supporting the idea of incineration, as I note in my Globe story.
This is just the beginning of the debates, though. Metro directors will be battling this out in September to define exactly what it is that they’ll be asking companies to bid on, as they craft the request for proposals that will go out.
13 responses so far ↓
1 Bill Lee // Jul 26, 2011 at 11:20 am
City, a small part of Metro/GVRD, is “by land and sea we prosper”
How about a cork in it and no sewage into the ocean at all. Now.
We foul our water and the air and “forget about it”.
Sad.
People know better, are willing to pay, but politicians fear any voter backlash.
2 Jeff MacLeod // Jul 26, 2011 at 1:47 pm
Actually Bill the air would be more fowled by letting the waste rot in a landfill as would the water. When garbage decomposes it releases methane with a GWP (Global Warming Potential) over twice that if it was burned. Eventually the methane released would get transformed into CO2 anyways. The current incinerators are much better and much cleaner than incinerators of times past by many many times. I’m sure that, when the government builds this, it will use the most up-to-date technology and limit the emissions.
3 Roger Kemble // Jul 27, 2011 at 2:15 am
“ When garbage decomposes it releases methane with a GWP (Global Warming Potential) over twice that if it was burned. Please Jeff @ #2, do not introduce the GW shibboleth on Frances’ blog . . .
http://www.truthwinds.com/siterun_data/environment/weather_and_climate/news.php?q=1311700951
. . . the cyclists are bad enough . . .
We have had some pretty civilized conversations but for that . . .
So many compelling issues when it comes to the environment, Enbridge, Kinder-Morgan, pipes and tankers screwing up our lives: most damaging of all, our own bleating as we refuse to practice what we preach . . .
The Steve/Christie/Gwynn axis love us when we wet our pants over nothing . . .
4 Roger Kemble // Jul 27, 2011 at 2:47 am
Correction:
http://members.shaw.ca/aguaflor/BC.architecture.since.1952.pdf
Name heading link
5 Agustin // Jul 27, 2011 at 9:16 am
@ Jeff: landfill gas can be captured and used as an energy source.
6 Morven // Jul 27, 2011 at 9:28 am
A tangential issue but an important one.
How can taxpayers (in Metro or Fraser RD) take seriously strategies that are overseen by appointed rather than elected directors. And I mean that even if you are elected to the Vancouver council, you are not elected directly by all the taxpayers of Metro Vancouver.
Remove that aristocratic like element (just like the Canadian Senate) and we might take Metro seriously.
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7 Ron // Jul 27, 2011 at 11:01 am
There should be a law introduced that garbage must be disposed of within the boundaries of the municipality (or regional district) in which it originates – THAT would certainly turn people’s minds to the amount of garbage that we generate (and dispose of the “out of sight, out of mind” mentality associated with shipping off our trash to the Interior).
8 Frances Bula // Jul 27, 2011 at 11:47 am
Morven (and everyone else who’s made a similar point)
I just do not get how people think that having elected regional directors would be different from having elected councillors who sit on a regional board. You’re sure that if they were directly elected, likely by about 20 per cent of the total population who would turn out for that, that you think they’d be making radically different decisions?
9 Morven // Jul 27, 2011 at 11:54 am
Hi Frances
I disagree.
MetroVancouver is staffed by superb employees, has earnest and dedicated directors but they are not directly elected and not subject directly to a system that used to be called democracy.
If they have taxing powers they have to be directly elected. Period.
Metro should not be a QUANGO – quasi autonomous non government organization.
These are generally considered to be subject to unchecked bias and optimistic views of the world.
The issue is not the calibre of their research, it is their direct accountability.
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10 Bill Lee // Jul 27, 2011 at 1:26 pm
Pick up the recent 2010 book
Municipal Solid Waste to Energy Conversion Processes: Economic, Technical, and Renewable Comparisons (ISBN: 0470539674 / 0-470-53967-4) by Gary C Young
Not at VPL (check other libraries or the BC libraries.ca federated search) but 30 other books on “municipal solid waste management.” are in.
After analysis he favours plasma arc reduction with add ons. And goes on at length about it.
And speaking of forgetting and changes. See http://www.francesbula.com/uncategorized/how-vancouver-will-make-its-garbage-disappear-two-visions/ of April this year for Madame Bula of this ‘salon’ intro to a multi-paged article in she scribed for Vancouver Magazine which the hoipoloi don’t get in all the many wrong districts in the city.
11 Sean // Jul 27, 2011 at 5:32 pm
@Morven #6
“How can taxpayers (in Metro or Fraser RD) take seriously strategies that are overseen by appointed rather than elected directors.”
If the alternative is amalgamation and a Rob Ford-style Vancouver, then I want no part of it and will fight against it vigorously.
12 Morven // Jul 27, 2011 at 5:42 pm
Sean # 11
Who said anything about amalgamation ? A mega region is just too large and unwieldy and unresponsive.
But there has to be some alternative from being overseen by unelected utopians or being dominated as a region by one municipality.
A regional assembly perhaps as a solution to a democratic deficit with the current regional structure.
But I do agree with the trigger for this discussion. Why should one area impose it’s own negative impacts on another region without a solid democratic framework to manage these issues.
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13 Bobbie Bees // Jul 27, 2011 at 9:21 pm
I don’t see anything wrong with incinerators in the city proper.
They would have to be the best most modern incinerators available, but they would be feasible.
The city could sell the energy created from these plants or use the energy to power city infrastructure.
Again, these would have to be the most modern of incinerators. No beehive burners.