Last week, youth from Fort Coulonge, Montreal and the rest of the world took to the streets to advocate for a more . . .
ecologically friendly society by taking part in the “Global Climate Strike” as it was dubbed, which attracted millions of people. In addition to the youthful climate advocates, almost all of the candidates for Pontiac riding took part in the widespread demonstrations.
On the organizer’s website, the mass protest movement was meant as a show of force to display that “we have the people power we need to create a just world and end the era of fossil fuels.”
There is a consensus among the people that study climate and the environment that we are causing catastrophic damage to our planet through our wanton discharge of various greenhouse gasses (among other hazardous substances) and the destruction of valuable ecosystems like the Amazon that mitigate some of these negative effects.
It’s true that we’re a tiny emitter on the world stage when compared to rapidly developing countries with populations in the billions like China or India, but per capita, Canadians are some of the worst polluters in the world. This goes beyond our country’s dependence on both the consumption and extraction of fossil fuels, and extends to the habits of modern North American life in general.
Pontiac spends nearly $1 million every year shipping our county’s trash to the landfill in Lachute, and the cost is only going to increase. According to data provided by MRC Environmental Coordinator Kari Richardson, residents of the Pontiac have increased their annual landfilled materials from 4,448 tonnes in 2014 to 4,826 tonnes in 2018. Though some of this increase can be attributed to the 2017 floods, our garbage is a big problem.
In a time of endless consumerism and corporate marketing, there’s a never-ending list of items to be ordered in seconds through online retail portals. We are a society of gluttonous swine who are slowly choking our environment with mountains of polyethylene trinkets and styrofoam packing peanuts.
We keep our heaps of trash secreted away, out of sight and out of mind, as a way to delude ourselves into thinking we can continue this suicidal consumption habit unabated.
Reduce is the most important piece of the recycling triangle, yet many people choose to place more emphasis on re-using and recycling.
A recent investigation by CBC’s Marketplace showed that many unscrupulous recycling companies are offloading their waste illegally in poor southeast Asian countries, like Malaysia or Cambodia. Canada was recently involved in a public spat with President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines over 69 shipping containers of our trash that had been illegally exported as plastic recycling. Canadians need to take a hard look at the damage our privileged existences are causing not only to our own habitat, but the habitats of people around the world.
Pontiac Warden Jane Toller has a novel plan to deal with our MRC’s waste, by creating a high tech incinerator that would create electricity and produce minimal emissions, based on a similar plant operating in the York-Durham region of Toronto.
The plan is still just an idea being tossed around at the moment, and it would be years before any such facility could begin to operate, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.
Clearly, something needs to change in order to reduce the overall waste sent to landfill. Richardson’s data shows that reducing the amount of compost in the MRC’s waste stream by two thirds would result in savings of nearly $300,000 annually, while diverting two thirds of recyclable plastics from the landfill would bring savings of $138,000.
Not only is this doable, but it is the fiscally responsible thing for local councils to implement. Our garbage should not be treated as an afterthought, but rather the looming, dangerous liability that it presents for the future of our society.
Caleb Nickerson
