Ontario´s Deck Stacked Against ´Stacks
I came across another interesting op-ed piece in yesterday´s Toronto
Star about the waste situation in Ontario. The gist of it is that the
province´s environmental regulations are stacked so heavily in favor of
landfilling vis-à-vis other waste disposal methods such as incineration,
waste-to-energy and gasification that those alternatives may as well not
exist as far as Ontario´s government leaders are concerned.
Meanwhile, Back In The States ...
You might think Michiganders would be tickled over recent developments
related to Toronto´s waste disposal plans, since it means a lot less
garbage from Ontario will eventually be crossing the border for burial
in the Wolverine State. If you did think that, you´d probably be mostly
right, but then there´s the rest of the picture.
Such as the residents of the Michigan communities where the landfills
that accept all of that imported trash are situated -- and who depend
heavily on the tax dollars those landfills generate.
As the above-linked Detroit Free Press story further notes, it´s not
as if Toronto´s recent moves will change the intrinsic economic factors
that make Michigan´s landfills attractive to far-away waste collectors:
lots of available disposal space and low tip fees. Landfill officials
say they plan to aggressively market the sites to replace the Canadian
waste they´ll be losing.
As a Huron Township official says, "Maybe we´ll stop 200 trucks from
Canada, but they´ll pick up 200 from New York or Pennsylvania."
One thing about waste you can count on. Like many other things, it
will always flow downhill.
Pete Fehrenbach
is assistant managing editor of Waste News. Past installments of this
column are collected in
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