Frances Bula header image 2
← →

2012 year of the incinerator in Vancouver, as Metro prepares to decide on new garbage disposal

January 4th, 2012 · 21 Comments

Last year, it was gas tax all year long.

I predict this year it’s going to be all about the decision on which new-tech, high-tech, waste-to-energy system for garbage disposal Metro Vancouver decides on.

Port Coquitlam Mayor Greg Moore says the RFP is likely going to go out by the end of March, with a decision by the end of the year. As my story in today’s Globe notes, international companies — along with Covanta, which currently runs the Burnaby incinerator, and Aquilini — are panting to come to a place like Vancouver, whose choice will signal what’s okay among green-aspiring cities.

Whatever Vancouver decides is going to be major news in the garbage world, because it’s one of only about a dozen places that are currently moving ahead with non-landfill choices for garbage.

A couple of eastern counties in the States, Edmonton in Alberta and Durham/York counties in Ontario, and Los Angeles are the front runners in what has become a new era for garbage disposal.

We seem to be following down the path of Los Angeles the most closely which, as Metro is planning to do, created a two-tier bidding process for garbage disposal, with one contract going to something that had to be a “proven” technology to deal with large quantities and one that was open to emerging, alternative technologies for a smaller amount.

This is going to be a tough one at Metro, with municipalities up the Fraser Valley facing likely strong opposition from residents who fear any particulates drifting up the valley from anything built closer to the coast, Vancouver councillors pushing for a non-incineration option, and cranky taxpayers balking at the half-billion-dollar cost.

 

Categories: Uncategorized

  • Guest

    Vancouver councuillors are no doubt opposed to the non-landfill option because it would hasten the closure of their own Vancouver Landfill (in Burns Bog, no less) which would mean that the City of Vancouver would then divert its solid waste to Metro’s facilities (at a cost) rather than using its own.

  • Bill Lee

    Yeah, and the upper Fraser River Valley has already fought expansion of Cherry Point, and the Sumas 2 thermal energy project just across the border. (49 degrees or fight. We could claim Sumas and Blaine if we “corrected” the border)
    They’ve already got all their numbers in a row for air quality.
    Their MLA Barry Penner had pages and pages of fight this “foreign” menace across the imaginary line. It won’t be much harder to fight for the air quality on this side of the line.
    see stuff at http://www.barrypenner.com/news/news.htm_retired
    and the FVRD engineering report on the Cherry Point “co-generation” report.
    http://preview.tinyurl.com/7x4l2uo

    Richmond and Abbotsford were strongly against them. This plan? Who knows.

    And some WTE plants do give off less noxious gases and chemicals at sufficiently high temperatures.
    Eliminating waste at source would be a better idea. “No package wrapping allowed in B.C.” “Stores have compulsory large waste bin sorting at checkouts.”

    Previous Fabula dogpits were
    http://francesbula.com/uncategorized/province-go-ahead-for-plan-with-incinerator-surprises-many/#comments
    and http://francesbula.com/uncategorized/what-are-we-going-to-do-with-our-garbage-metro-vancouver-struggles-to-find-the-way/#comments

  • Michael Geller

    I have nothing to say about this topic at the moment. But I do want to reprint a note from December 10th at which time we were trying to arrange a get together for a few Fabula readers at Bitter…Here it is:

    So Frank, Bobbie, Silly Season, JJJ et al…4:30 on the 6th of January at Bitter…no need to confirm, just show up!

    Frank Ducote and I are the bald ones!

    Hopefully a few of you will show up. And if not, I’ll save some money! cheers

  • Joe Just Joe

    I’ve been under the weather for just over a week so I won’t be my usual self nor will I probably stay too long but I’ll still make it there ~5:30ish. I’ll be the one that still has a full head of hair and loosk the same as from last years riot videos. 😉

  • Silly Season

    I’ll be there. You’ll just have to figure out which one I am…

    😉

  • Bobbie Bees

    Hi Michael, where is Bitter?

  • Chris Keam

    Plans with my daughter tonight, who I don’t see enough of… have fun Fabulistas!

  • Bill McCreery

    18 West Hastings. See you there. Sorry Chris K. won’t be there. It would be good to meet. Bobbie, perhaps your contention that car drivers should wear helmets is gaining traction.

  • Bobbie Bees

    OMFG…. I just realized that I didn’t make it to the get together……… silly me…. Must program into Google Calender next time….

    Did anyone show up?

  • Silly Season

    You were missed, Bobby B!. et al. Good time.

    About 10 of us, all in.

  • MB

    Back to the steamy topic of incineration.

    I will be disappointed if Metro votes in favour of more incinerators. It is unfortunate that obtaining revenue from private operators is already providing such an effective counterpoint to the ethical issue of injecting more particulates and GHGs into the atmosphere. The irony is that revenue is also available from garbage in more ways than one, some of which also reduce the pollution.

    First, though landfills are not the best solution, if Metro seriously promoted a new and sustained deep recycling program (including demolition waste) and priced solid waste accordingly, then the landfills we have now will last longer. The industrial-scale composting of all green waste is a good start.

    Moreover, methane gas collection at landfills and electrical generation from its combustion is already a proven and effective technology, and this will result in far less pollution than garbage incincerators that burn everything or landfills that allow the release of methane into the atmosphere.

    In addition to generating electricity they can attach waste heat recovery systems to provide steam heat distribution to local greenhouses and development projects for even more revenue. Greenhouses currently burn sawdust. The Vancouver landfill located in Delta is conveniently located reasonably near many greeenhouse operations.

    There are answers beyond “easy” incinerators, but they require creative thinking, which may be in short supply when juxtaposed with our mountains garbage, mountain-ringed airshed, and limited land supply.

  • Bill

    @mb 11

    Non-recycleable household waste has been incinerated in Europe for decades so clearly the environmental concerns for that solution have been addressed and it is a better way of disposing of garbage than sticking it in the ground.

  • MB

    @ Bill, I’d leave to readers in Abbotsford and Chilliwack to respond to your implication that increasing particulate pollution in urban / suburban areas is OK because some Europeans do it.

    Or perhaps I’ll get my wife to respond. She has severe asthsma.

  • Bill

    @MB 13

    “is OK because some Europeans do it.”

    Actually it is more than some. In 2006 there were over 450 facilities in 17 different countries. Given they are operating in more densely populated areas, it is reasonable to conclude that they are managing to dispose of their waste without serious discomfort to the asthmatics.

    It makes no sense to stick the waste in the ground when it can be safely controlled and disposed of through incineration.

  • MB

    “…they are managing to dispose of their waste without serious discomfort to the asthmatics.”

    I doubt that very much. Perhaps they are just willing to accept the ramifications of increased particulates in the health of residents, even the emission of very fine particles that never leave one’s lungs once entered, as the cost of doing business, much everyone does with ground level ozone and oxides of nitrogen and sulphur from autos.

    Not every European city has incinerators. In fact I’d bet a large number of incinerators are placed outside of cities, and the newest ones far outside and downwind. If approved, ours will be placed within the urban boundary of the Metro. Only one proposal I’m aware of places one huge incinerator at Gold River on the west coast of the Island, with our garbage barged there.

    Moreover, not every European exurbia is ringed with mountains that hold the smog in, lkie Vancouver.

    There is also the issue of increased CO2 and its contribution to climate change, something the Metro planners want to minimize. I know you are a vocal denier, but apparently no government — local, regional or national — is on record denying that human-induced emissions are the root cause.

    The Metro planners will be in counterpoint with the decision makers if the latter vote for incinerators.

  • MB

    Bill, I asked my wife if she’d care to respond to your assertion that incinerators don’t “seriously discomfort asthmatics.” Her response would make the Bacon brothers blush.

    Let’s just say she vehmently disagrees with you and finds your comment patently ridiculous in the absense of medical evidence to support it.

  • Bill

    MB, the EU is the only developed region that actually tried to implement Kyoto yet they still prefer burning waste to putting it in a landfill so your climate change argument is ridiculous. As for the location of the incinerators, the EU has such stringent environmental standards that the placing of the facility is pretty much irrelevant.

  • MB

    >> Tackling climate change will require a range of actions to reduce GHG emissions and also to prepare for the impacts that it will bring to our region. In June 2010 Metro Vancouver adopted its Corporate Climate Action Plan (CCAP). The purpose of the CCAP is to set out strategies and actions towards achieving Metro Vancouver’s commitment to corporate carbon neutrality and to adapt our corporate infrastructure and activities to the anticipated consequences of climate change.

    >> In October 2011 Metro Vancouver adopted the Integrated Air Quality and Greenhouse Gas Management Plan. One of this plan’s three goals is to “Minimize the region’s contribution to global climate change”, and this goal includes 5 strategies and 37 actions for Metro Vancouver, its member municipalities and other partners that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the region. <<

    Excerpted from Metro Vancouver's link on climate change policy:

    http://www.metrovancouver.org/planning/ClimateChange/Pages/default.aspx

    The policy will have to change w/r/t emissions mitigation measures if the Metro's own board votes for incinerators.

  • MB

    Regarding the EU, as of 2008 more than twice as much municipal solid waste is still landfilled than incinerated. In addition, roughly twice as much waste is composted or recycled than incinerated. Incineration is a minor component of their waste mitigation policy framework.

    Further, EU policy calls for the upgrading of older landfills to include leachate capture and treatment systems (hopefully to tertiary levels) and methane gas collection systems with energy recovery from its combustion. The EU says it is imperative that raw methane not be released into the atmosphere because of its potency as a greenhouse gas.

    [The EU does not deny anthorpogenic climate change and has been deriving policies to counter it for years.]

    Their policies regarding incineratiors also includes the upgrading of older facilities to reduce the release of particulates, potent chemicals and CO2. But they do not eliminate 100% of these pollutants.

    There is a link to a handy brochure at the following site:

    http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/index.htm

    None of this obviates my concerns about particulate and GHG pollution from the incineration of garbage within the contained airshed of the Fraser Valley.

  • Bill

    @MB #19

    That was a good reference you provided – did you note point 3?

    “Improving final disposal and monitoring: Where possible, waste that cannot be recycled or reused should be safely incinerated, with landfill only used as a last resort. “

  • MB

    Bill, did you see the graph on p. 14 of the brochure? It clearly indicates that landfilling contuinues to be the largest component in dealing with municipal solid waste (~ 40%) in the EU with recycling and composting together forming another ~ 40%.

    Incinceration comprises only ~ 20% of the total in the entire EU. I believe the proposal here was to divert a lot more than 20% to incinerators.

    All I’m saying is vastly improve on what we’re doing now (recycle, compost and upgrade landfills to remove methane and treat toxic leachate) rather than flaming it all into the sky.