CFN – Last night the Township of South Stormont held a public information session on the subject of “Waste Recycling Strategy and a Solid Waste Management Plan. Apparently, our Trillium landfill site only has 10 years left before it becomes full, and the township in a display of forward thinking wisdom is planning on what to do about it now.
This wasn’t a first step either. They have already commissioned the engineering firm Genivar to look at all our options and distil them down to a manageable list. This session was to present the options to the public and get our impressions and comments, and comments they did get. Shaun Spalding, a Waste Diversion Specialist from Genivar, told me that usually when they have one of these meeting in the Greater Toronto Area they might see a dozen or so interested persons show up at the meeting. I counted 50 at one point, and I’m sure there were a few late comers as well. Shaun was impressed with how many of the residents were engaged in the topic.
Jennifer Brown-Hawn, Senior Enviromental Technician, presented the first part of the program which outlined options for the solid waste management plan. They included doing nothing to expanding the landfill sites to building Energy-from-waste (EFW) facilities within the township. In all Genivar had listed 12 solutions that are being considered and are willing to consider more if other reasonable solutions come to light during these consultations.
The second part of the presentation was handles by Shaun Spalding, Waste Diversion Specialist. Shaun discussed the Waste Recycling Strategy part of the program. Basically, South Stormont is only recycling 22.3% of the allowable waste that we could. Shaun had 16 different options on how we could as a community increase the diversion of recyclable material from landfill to the appropriate facilities to separate and reuse the material. He pointed out that the amount of money we receive for waste handling from the Ontario Ministry of Environment is largely based on how well we divert recyclables from landfill.
Throughout the whole presentation members of the audience continued to ask questions. They were intelligent, polite but most of all, concerned about the issue. Subjects of land use and cost were brought up by the residents as well as quite a few questions about the Energy–From–Waste facilities which is an efficient clean modern day version of the incinerator. Shaun and Jennifer answered all the questions as best they could and to the satisfaction of most of the questioners. At the end of the presentation Mayor McGillis encouraged all present to contact any of the township councillors, Dan Pilon, the Public Works manager or the representatives of Genivar if they had any more questions about the issue.
For further information on this issues and copies of the presentation are available at the South Stormont Town Hall or at:
http://southstormont.ca/documents/Public-Information-Centre.pdf
