Innovation and leadership needed to deal with looming garbage crisis

There is a looming garbage crisis in Ontario. Municipalities in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) who truck their garbage to the United States may very soon be confronted with the problem of the US border closing to Ontario’s garbage.

The City of Toronto alone ships approximately 100 trucks of garbage a day to Michigan. The Regions of Peel, Durham, and York have come to rely on a commercial relationship with American landfills, primarily in the State of Michigan, as disposal sites for residential, commercial, industrial and institutional waste.

The US Congress is expected to debate legislation that would enable the State of Michigan to put a stop to the shipment of Ontario’s garbage into that jurisdiction. That means that alternative plans are needed now to ensure we are able to handle massive amounts of garbage.

This raises serious questions. Where will municipalities like Toronto put its garbage? Will other municipalities in the GTA or surrounding area be expected to expand their landfill sites? What if anything, is the McGuinty Government’s contingency plan?

Earlier this summer, Ontario PC Leader John Tory showed leadership by convening a Waste Options Summit at Queen’s Park. The summit brought together a balanced mix of experts and professionals from the public and private sector waste management services, other levels of government, academia, industry, environmental and community organizations.

I participated in this meeting and was delighted to be joined by other attendees from our area including David Adsett, a former Warden of Wellington County.

One message that we took away was clear. The Provincial Government is running headlong into a real and serious garbage crisis.

The McGuinty Liberal Government appears to have no plan, leaving a major void in leadership. This is despite the fact that John Tory called on Premier Dalton McGuinty to hold a summit on waste issues last December, to deal with this looming crisis out in the open.

Another conclusion we drew is that we have to be innovative and open to new solutions and leading-edge technologies, such as Energy From Waste facilities. We have to use science and common sense. We have to make sure that, whichever option we pursue, protection of our natural environment is the foremost consideration. (367 words)