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Currently Metro Vancouver is considering a plan which would lead to over half a million tonnes of garbage being incinerated every year. This would be a major step backwards for efforts to achieve Zero Waste.
NEW waste incinerators should NOT BE APPROVED for the following reasons:
1
Incinerators do not make waste disappear.
For every five truckloads of waste burned, four truckloads are pumped into the atmosphere and one remains as toxic ash, which still must be carefully stored or landfilled.[2]
2
Incinerators are a toxic technology.
Even the most technologically advanced waste incinerators produce hundreds of distinct hazardous byproducts including dioxins, heavy metals, halogenated organic compounds and the newly discovered threat, nanoparticles.[3][4] These occur both in toxic air emissions and in ash residuals.
4
Incinerators waste energy and natural resources.
Incineration irreversibly destroys valuable materials and necessitates the extraction, refinement and assembly of more raw natural resources to produce new products. Alternatives such as recycling,[7][8][9]reuse and repair and composting conserve energy by efficiently using materials. This significantly reduces global warming pollution, toxic waste and ecological degradation.
5
Incinerators trap communities in a cycle of debt.
They also displace more affordable and economically productive waste and energy solutions. Alternatives to incineration such as recycling, repair, reuse and composting create ten times more jobs (green jobs) and small business opportunities that benefit local communities.[10]
6
Disadvantaged communities are disproportionately burdened.
These communities are more vulnerable to being targeted as sites for new incinerators. [11]
- Incineration includes mass-burn, gasification, pyrolysis, plasma arc, refuse derived fuel and other thermal processing technologies.
- AECOM, “Management of Municipal Solid Waste in Metro Vancouver Ða comparative analysis of options for management of waste after recycling”, June 2009. http://www.metrovancouver.org/services/solidwaste/planning/Thenextsteps/SDD_3_AECOM_FULL_REPORT.pdf
- Tangri, Neil “Waste Incineration: A Dying Technology,” GAIA, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, July 14, 2003
- British Society of Ecological Medicine. “ The Health Effects of Waste Incinerators”, June 2008. http://www.ecomed.org.uk/content/IncineratorReport_v3.pdf
- Hogg, Dominic “A Changing Climate for Energy from Waste?” Friends of the Earth, March 5, 2006
- David Suzuki Foundation et al., “Incineration of Municipal Solid Waste -Impact on Global Warming”. http://www.durhamenvironmentwatch.org/Incinerator Files/FS1climate_change.pdf
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “Solid Waste Management and Greenhouse Gases, A Life-Cycle Assessment of Emissions and Sinks 3rd edition,” September, 2006
- Morris, Jeff. “Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Waste Management Strategies with a Zero Waste Objective”, 2009, http://www.belkorp.ca/Dr_Morris_Report.pdf
- 9 Platt, Brenda et al. “Stop Trashing the Climate”, June 2008. http://www.stoptrashingtheclimate.org/fullreport_stoptrashingtheclimate.pdf
- 10 Institute for Local Self Reliance. “Waste to Wealth,” 2006, http://www.ilsr.org/recycling/recyclingmeansbusiness.html.
- 11 Mohai, Paul “Reassessing Racial and Socioeconomic Disparities in Environmental Justice Research,” May, 2006, Demography, 43 (2), 383-399
If you would like to share your concerns with decision makers simply use this letter writing tool and your message will be forwarded on your behalf to members of the Metro Vancouver board as well as the BC Minister of the Environment, Barry Penner.