Building a zero-waste city takes time

Alternatives exist to incineration and landfill, writes Duncan Bury

The city of Ottawa is at the mid–point of developing its Solid Waste Master Plan (SWMP) with the recent release of a long list of options for a sustainable waste management future. In a major step forward, city council on July 9 adopted a zero-waste vision for the municipality.

The Trail Road landfill will reach capacity between 2036 and 2038 and this news has served to focus increased attention on the waste issue. There is, however, no silver bullet or black box that is going to make waste go away. Reaching for a zero-waste future is going to require aggressive waste reduction, enhanced waste diversion, political leadership and a sustained effort to implement a wide range of mutually supportive policies, programs and waste management systems.

We have some time, though, and it can be done.

Some people have suggested in the pages of this newspaper that the city should abandon the SWMP and instead fast-track a decision for either a new landfill or an incinerator. A proponent of an unproven pilot-scale technology recently lobbied the city's environmental protection, water and waste management committee to bypass the council-approved waste-planning process and give it an inside track for a city contract.

There are no short cuts.

The waste-management planning process needs to be allowed to work as it was designed to with an open consultative public participation process and a solid technical and professional evaluation of the options that have been identified.

Admittedly, we will always need some disposal capacity, but there is a huge amount of data and real-world experience that shows that the city can reduce our waste footprint and significantly enhance waste diversion through such means as ramping up organics collection and using anaerobic digestion to produce bio-gas, as the city currently does at the wastewater treatment plant.

We can avoid replacing Trail Road or building an incinerator if the city adopts many of the waste-diversion policies and programs that are set out in the long list of options.

All of the options recommended for review have proven successful elsewhere in Ontario and Canada. Waste diversion practices such as user pay, bans on collecting certain wastes, eliminating single chutes in apartment buildings and drop-off depots are not magical thinking. They are successful real-world practices with relatively low capital and operating costs. There will be challenges adjusting to new policies such as pay-per-bag but such programs reduce garbage tonnages and have been implemented by dozens of large and small municipalities without rural road ditches becoming dump sites or the citizenry storming city hall with torches and pitchforks.

Siting and building a new landfill or an incinerator is by far the most expensive way to manage waste, with capital costs in excess of $300 million. Why would the city embrace such options with the very high assessment and approvals costs and controversy, and especially when faced with citywide budget pressures, when much cheaper and effective waste management policies could be adopted instead?

If we do a really good job on the path to zero waste, there will be virtually nothing left to bury and nothing left that is burnable.

Let the Solid Waste Master Plan complete its work. Let the public have their say. Let the professionals and the experts weigh in on the options. We must start to think of the Trail Road landfill site as an irreplaceable evergreen asset. Let us be patient and take the time necessary to build an environmentally, socially and fiscally sustainable waste-management future.