From the Post:
St. Thomas dump won't solve long-term problems
Glen Grunwald, National Post
Published: Saturday, September 23, 2006
So, here's an interesting ''before and after'' picture:
Before: Dozens of trucks a day carry our garbage (a million tonnes of it per year) to a landfill in Michigan.
After: Dozens of trucks a day carry our garbage (a million tonnes of it per year) to a landfill in St. Thomas.
On the surface, the only difference is that the trucks turn off Highway 401 a few hours sooner. Realistically, the big difference is that Toronto will own the St. Thomas dump and, the hope is, not have to worry about having the door shut on our garbage shipments.
To be fair, having control over our waste stream is a major step forward, although the mayor of London, who is plenty steamed about having our trucks full of trash rumbling through her suburbs every day, may have something to say about that.
Anyway, it seems to me that the real point of this issue is being missed amid the debate about costs, contracts and confidentiality.
For all the years that we've been trucking our garbage away, everyone from environmentalists to business owners has been asking, "When are we going to take care of our own problem and find a real, affordable, long-term, local, environmentally sustainable solution?"
I don't think the dump purchase answers that question.
It still assumes that sticking our garbage in a hole in the ground is the thing to do; we're just changing the location and regulation of the hole.
Sure, having our own dump takes the pressure off and should give us more time to figure things out, without the 2010 deadline for ending shipments to our old dumping grounds in the States.
We'll find out in a few months if we've purchased that breathing room at a reasonable cost, when details of the St. Thomas deal are finally made public.
However, even if we had a free dump dumped in our laps, it does not represent a permanent solution to our garbage challenge. We're still faced with the facts that our city creates a huge amount of waste, that our government says we can't afford to push our diversion rate to the 60% target, and that the costs (financial and environmental) of taking out our trash are almost certainly going to increase every year.
How do we reduce the amount of garbage we create and its environmental impact? Can we look at more of the waste stream as a potential resource?
How do we encourage (and afford) more reduction and recycling?
What role should modern technologies, including energy from waste, play in our waste management system? Should there be a closer link between the cost of waste disposal to the community and its cost to individuals?
Sweeping them under a different carpet doesn't make these questions go away. If we're not careful, it could provide another excuse for ignoring these queries and delaying the search for real answers.
If so, the St. Thomas dump will eventually run out of room and we'll still be looking at the same challenges we face right now.
After everyone descrying the fact that our predecessors should have taken action years ago, but failed to do so, it would be the worst kind of irony to open up the newspaper a decade from now and read an editorial about Toronto's looming garbage crisis.
How's this for an idea?
Let's take advantage of the breathing room provided by our shiny new garbage dump to actually solve the problem, once and for all.
- Glen Grunwald is president & CEO of the Toronto Board of Trade. He doesn't believe in the garbage fairy.
© National Post 2006
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It's telling that even Glen Grunwald isn't necessarily slamming the deal.
AoD
