Dear Editor,
Our waste management systems are in a bind and we don’t have very long to come up with ways of dealing with the waste we produce. Otherwise, we leave a legacy of random heaps of garbage for the young and younger. Where once natural beauty was touted as an attraction for visitors, the future may be pock-marked with no-go zones.
Modern-day designers and engineers are way ahead in designing new gadgets and processes but way behind on end-of-life cycle for the used and no longer wanted items. We, as citizens, are way ahead in buying and accumulating things we don’t need and don’t want to keep, but we’re lax about properly disposing of the leftovers. Governments can set up parameters, make regulations and encourage waste management entrepreneurs but people must do a modicum of sorting and co-operating with the system or it doesn’t work.
One big mistake that has brought us to where we are is the notion that all waste goes together. That’s an inefficient way of dealing with it. A better way would be to send food and yard waste to a composting facility where waste material becomes the feedstock and fertilizer will be the end product. But that requires somebody to sort the material and the sooner in the process it’s sorted, the more efficient it will be. That means you and me, the waste-producers, must sort plastics, metals, wood and paper, organic household waste into separate bins. Sounds like a lot of work for nothing? Yeah, it is, but consider the alternative plan – that of doing nothing about the situation.
Plastic and metal and construction waste are different sorts and presently there are no ideas on the table to deal with those waste streams other than gathering it all and sending it to a landfill in Lachute. That is bound to be a finite, stop-gap solution. The hole will be filled and/or it will become too expensive to haul all that crap all that way. A more local facility is needed but that leads us to another gaping maw of potential slow-motion disaster – another landfill, close to the river, operated by a consortium known for startup and stop schemes and already in possession of accumulated waste without a permit? That doesn’t sound like good idea.
It’s time to consider a regional incinerator. I dislike the idea, but I dislike the alternatives even more. It is a possibility that waste can be incinerated, that electricity can be generated with the excess heat and the bulk of the non-recyclable non-organic waste could be reduced to cinders. That will be a big operation and expensive to set up and is yet another aspect of waste management that is potentially fraught with peril, if it’s undertaken with profit-over-safety as the guiding philosophy. We should begin considering it seriously now, because at any rate, such a facility is years away and our waste production is ahead of schedule.
Then there’s the ultimate in long-term hazardous waste; radioactive materials from the now-defunct nuclear facilities upriver from here and from other sites. A plan has been proposed which would involve near-surface (that means a shallow grave) landfill-dumping of those materials. Near the river. Disregarding the likelihood of earthquakes, floods or seepage which could release toxicity into the river, anytime over the next 250,000 years. Now would be a good time to come up with a better solution.
Robert Wills
Thorne/Shawville, Que.
