CABOT calls for Divert NS to reverse stance
Following Thursday’s protest over Lafarge’s plans to burn tires, Lydia Sorflaten intended to deliver a letter addressed to Jeff MacCallum, CEO of Divert NS. The letter reads:
Divert NS’s Mission Statement: “To work with Nova Scotians to improve our environment, economy, and quality of life by reducing, reusing, recycling, and recovering resources.”
When RRFB was set up, the initial three ‘R’s of Reducing, Reusing and Recycling in descending order of priority: Reducing first, Reusing second and Recycling third.
Ten years ago, politicians dreamed of a recycling program to reuse Nova Scotia tires.
Divert NS 2016 Annual Report proudly boasts, “Used tires are converted into Tire Derived Aggregate (TDA), a multi-purpose product that can be used in construction and engineering projects. This product is produced by a local company, which means in addition to helping our environment, we are supporting local business too.”
Without appropriate consultation or engagement with stakeholders or the public, Divert NS in 2017 issued the first ‘approval’ by accepting a bid from Lafarge to burn 730,000 tires per year in an ill-equipped 60-year-old kiln. It appears that Divert NS has bent to the pressures of Industry without consideration of citizens’ rights to clean air, clean water and a recycling program, of which we can all be proud. The credibility of Nova Scotia’s recycling program is at stake.
Ten years ago, we organized our citizens’ group, CABOT (Citizens Against Burning of Tires). Our two-year battle (2007-2008) resulted in An Act to Amend Chapter 1 of the Acts of 1994-95, the Environment Act, to Prohibit the Burning of Tires in Nova Scotia Private Members Bill 26 Introduced by MLA Keith Caldwell Passed Third Reading: November 21, 2008.
Citizens’ feelings have not been considered nor have they been consulted.
We question the structure and representation of your ‘Board.’
We are working closely with the Ecology Action Centre. In your letter of July 21, 2017 to Mark Butler, you stated: “TDF is a well-established, research-based technology used globally, including jurisdictions with some of the
strictest emissions standards in the world.”
We request that Divert NS and the Department of the Environment educate themselves independently of industry and industry-funded research.
In Europe, many countries ban the burning of tires in old cement plants. Period. In Europe, where standards are very high, modern state of the art cement plants which burn shredded tires as TDF (Tire Derived Fuel), whole tires would not be considered for burning – only shredded tires and even with shredded tires, please study what our research found. (Appendix: Literature Review of Burning of Tires as a Supplementary Fuel in Cement Kiln Plants)
As a not-for-profit agency we ask that you be accountable to the public. We presently pay $4.50- $13.50/tire to have our tires recycled. Money appears to be the motive behind this. Divert NS will pay less to Lafarge to burn our tires. We, as citizens, pay the ‘Environmental Fee’ to have our tires responsibly recycled. Here, we have a local recycling industry employing local people recycling our tires now threatened by the government turning our tires over to a multinational and thereby subsidizing their fuel costs.
In order to maintain your credibility and reputation, it is imperative that Divert NS take steps now to rescind its current stance on this issue.