Sludge Watch ==> Toronto - first sludge now trash banned from Michigan - Where will garbage go?

[maureen.reilly at sympatico.ca]

Sludgewatch Admin:

Dear Readers,

You regulars will be aware that recently Toronto  (indeed Ontario) sludge 
has been booted out of
a Michigan landfill and is now getting trucked farther away to places in New 
York State and Quebec.

The City of Toronto claimed it had a contract with the Republic Services 
group to take sludge, but an Ontario Supreme Court Judge disagreed.  So 
Toronto, which can't seem to even start to contemplate finding its own 
landfill or its own incinerator is looking to other communities to bear the 
burden of its excrement - and to imperil drivers for a 600 kilometer radius 
of the Ashbridges plant with the potential for crashes and spills.

Now - faced with pressure from Michigan to completely close the border to 
Ontario municipal trash, Ontario has agreed to stop sending trash to 
Michigan....starting with a 20 percent reduction this year, and decreasing 
20 percent per year from now on.

So....where is Toronto trash going to go?  What community will be home to 
Toronto's wandering wastes?

There is a need to reduce the waste stream and to manage it more efficiently 
and effectively. We need to start with reducing packaging. This is the realm 
of law. To help federal officials pass better packaging laws the Sierra Club 
here in Canada has initiated a Waste Packaging Campaign. Just mail in you 
improper packaging materials to these two Federal Members of Parliament 
d:either Rona Ambrose the Minister of the Environment or Maxine Bermier the 
Industry Minister.  Mailing stickers can be downloaded at the web page 
below.

There is no postage for letters and packaging to your federal Members of 
Parliament.

Here is the web page for the Improper Packaging Campaign:
http://ontario.sierraclub.ca/campaigns/waste_diversion/improper_packaging_campaign/



...................

Where will our garbage go?
Crisis averted, but more dumps, incineration, recycling called inevitable
Sep. 1, 2006. 07:50 AM
ROB FERGUSON AND JOHN SPEARS
STAFF REPORTERS - Toronto Star


A deal to secure peace with Michigan over unwanted shipments of Ontario's 
household trash means citizens — like it or not — have to accept more dumps, 
incinerators and recycling, experts say.

Under the pact revealed yesterday by Environment Minister Laurel Broten, 
Toronto and other municipalities will phase out shipments of residential 
garbage to the state by 2010.

In return, two U.S. senators from Michigan are dropping legislative efforts 
to close the border to the waste, a move that would have created a trash 
crisis overwhelming several Ontario cities within days.

"We were paying very close attention to that legislation (because) it 
absolutely had the potential of closing the border ... in pretty short 
order, potentially by January 2007," Broten said.

The four years give Toronto and the regions of York, Peel and Durham — the 
main exporters of trash to Michigan — breathing room to come up with 
alternative plans, Broten said.

"They've all assured me they will be able to meet or beat this time frame."

Some in the garbage business are wondering how that's going to happen unless 
efforts are stepped up dramatically.

"That's the million-dollar question," said Rob Cook, president of the 
Ontario Waste Management Association. "We need more waste diversion and 
disposal capacity."

Broten brokered the deal with senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow, who 
had threatened to pursue amendments to a Homeland Security Appropriations 
bill in Washington, closing the door to Ontario's household trash within 
months.

"Ontario has been a great neighbour to Michigan, with one inexcusable 
exception: every day Ontario dumps its trash in our state," said Levin, a 
Democrat.

Residents of Michigan, which also accepts trash from a number of states as 
far away as Florida, have become increasingly concerned about traffic 
congestion and road damage from more than a hundred trucks a day. They also 
had border security worries.

Industrial, commercial and institutional waste — produced in quantities at 
least equal to residential trash — is not part of the deal and can still be 
dumped in Michigan.

The Ontario municipalities — which include Orangeville, Owen Sound and 
Meaford — must act quickly to keep their part of the bargain because the 
deal calls for a 20 per cent trash reduction by the end of 2007 and 40 per 
cent a year later.

The targets are based on 2005 levels of 1.34 million metric tonnes of 
household waste shipped to Michigan. By 2010, almost 2.8 million tonnes will 
have been diverted from the state and kept in Ontario.

Broten acknowledged the province will have to consider proposals for 
expanding garbage dumps, or building new dumps and garbage incinerators that 
pass environmental assessments.

All are politically sensitive options given rising public concern about the 
environment and air and water quality, particularly with a provincial 
election set for Oct. 4, 2007.

"We're going to continue to look at all EA (environmental assessment) 
approvals with a view to ensuring that Ontarians will be safe, and making a 
decision whether or not a project should go ahead," Broten told the Star.

"The long-term solution is to reduce the waste we generate" through 
recycling and composting, she added.

The government is lagging in helping municipalities on that front and is 
only halfway to its promise to have 60 per cent of trash diverted from dumps 
by 2008, said Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory.

"Isn't it typical of Premier Dalton McGuinty's Liberals to sign an agreement 
with the senators pledging to do something without a plan to back it up?"

Toronto, for one, is counting on help from Broten, said Councillor Adam 
Giambrone, vice- chair of the city's works committee. "The minister has 
guaranteed that they will work with us to make sure that we have somewhere 
to put our garbage," he said.

"They know our challenges ... they know there's only a limited number of 
landfills out there willing to accept Toronto garbage."

Mayor David Miller said he opposes incineration because "our air quality is 
bad enough," and he called on the provincial and federal governments to 
bring in legislation preventing companies from using excess packaging on 
their products to help reduce waste, as is done in Sweden and Germany.

Still, the pact is good for Toronto because it eases the fear of a border 
closing and sets a deadline forcing action, several city politicians and 
observers said.

"This is the best thing that could have happened," said Councillor Jane 
Pitfield, who's running for mayor in the Nov. 13 election.

Gord Perks of the Toronto Environmental Alliance said the deal means "we can 
start planning sensibly instead of planning by panic, and that will lead us 
to maybe some smarter solutions that we would get otherwise."

Toronto has made progress toward meeting the initial 20 per cent reduction, 
said Giambrone, extending green bin kitchen waste coverage to all areas and 
adding items to blue box collections. There are more programs coming, he 
said.

"We don't expect the first target to be a problem to meet, from what we've 
heard from our solid waste staff. And then going forward into the future 
targets also shouldn't be a problem," Giambrone said.

Toronto has cut its shipments to Michigan from 1.24 million tonnes in 2002 
to 724,000 tonnes last year.

In terms of truckloads, it's now down to 85 trucks daily from a peak of 142. 
Toronto has been shipping all its trash to Michigan since closing the Keele 
Valley dump in 2002.

The amount of trash after recycling and composting programs should shrink to 
about 400,000 tonnes by 2010 or 2012, according to city staff.

An advisory panel has been set up to study how to handle that waste. It will 
be holding public hearings this fall. It's due to report in 2009.

But costs will go up when the border closes, Giambrone warned, noting 
Toronto has just issued a request for proposals seeking landfill sites in 
Ontario after 2010. "I think it's going to be more expensive than Michigan 
... it's hard to tell at this point how much more."

A progress report produced by city staff shows the cost of handling solid 
waste rising about 50 per cent — from $198 million in 2006 to $298 million 
in 2012.

Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion said yesterday's deal is a "wake-up call" 
to reduce the industrial, commercial and institutional waste being shipped 
to Michigan.

Peel Region, which includes Mississauga, trucks about 120,000 tonnes, 40 per 
cent of total waste generated, to Michigan, at a cost of $70 to $75 a tonne, 
about $2 to $4 less than what it costs to dispose of waste in Ontario.

While he agrees that alternatives to Michigan aren't available right now, 
Peel director of waste management Andrew Pollock says there will be no 
problem meeting Michigan's four-year goal.

"We've just finished construction of a composting facility that will handle 
60,000 tonnes a year and will be operational by April 2007," Pollock said. A 
plant that converts trash to pellets that can replace coal will be running 
next year and use another 16,000 tonnes of garbage, he added.

Meanwhile in Halton, which doesn't ship any garbage to Michigan, the 
recently revealed plan to build a large energy-from-waste incinerator that 
would be ready by 2009 seems like a stroke of genius in light of yesterday's 
deal.

"We're basically in crisis across the GTA," Burlington Mayor Robert MacIsaac 
said.

But MacIsaac warned the rest of the GTA not to rely on the proposed 
super-incinerator, (one of two proposed options, along with a smaller 
incinerator) which is being planned for the Milton area, pending provincial 
approval.

Durham and York regions have begun composting waste to immediately reduce 
the amount of garbage being shipped to Michigan by one-third, officials 
said.

Durham Region currently ships about 150,000 tonnes to Michigan and York 
about 140,000 tonnes.

The two regions are in the first stage of a plan to build their own 
energy-from-waste incinerator, after sending a joint team to Europe to visit 
plants using low-emissions technology.

"I think there's a lot of fear about incineration," said Oshawa Mayor John 
Gray. "We need to show maturity; it's being done successfully across Europe. 
I certainly support the incineration option in Durham."

With files from Paul Moloney and San Grewal..............................