Minister promises garbage bylaw soon

B. C.’ s environment minister says she could decide within weeks whether to approve Metro Vancouver’s garbage hauling bylaw.

“I don’t have a firm date, but it would be soon,” Mary Polak told The Sun. “I’m expecting in the next couple of weeks to have the analysis and briefing from staff, so I wouldn’t expect much longer than that.”

Metro Vancouver has been waiting a year for the B. C. government to reject or approve its controversial Bylaw 280, which would require that garbage generated in Metro Vancouver be processed at regional facilities. Metro Vancouver argues the bylaw is needed to curtail commercial haulers from taking local garbage to the Fraser Valley and the U. S. to avoid high tipping fees and surcharge fines designed to encourage recycling.

Critics have argued that Metro Vancouver wants a monopoly to ensure enough waste stays in the region to feed a planned $ 470- million waste to-- energy project.

Malcolm Brodie, chairman of Metro’s waste committee, said Thursday that Metro staff has been in contact with the ministry on a regular basis but has not received any indication of when a decision will be made.

Directors on the committee heard Thursday that without Bylaw 280, Metro would have to go to a Plan B, which could involve raising property taxes to subsidize the region’s ambitious solid waste management plan. The plan aims to divert 70 per cent of the region’s trash from landfills by 2015 and 80 per cent by 2020. “There is a Plan B but the Plan B is so unpleasant and it reverses everything we’ve been doing,” said Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan. However, Lori Bryan, executive director of the Waste Management Association of B. C., said in an email the bylaw is “a simple tax grab” that will see fees for local garbage disposal rise to $ 157 per tonne by 2018 from $ 108 this year — a 45- percent hike that will be passed on to homeowners and small businesses.