So let's talk about organics

Since 1995 (or thereabouts) when the former King of Hope Twp - Sir Ian Molsen Angus - cut the crap out of the County budget composting hasn't had a chance. When the County expropriated? (bought over landowners' objections) the land that the that Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) sits on in Grafton and designed a properly designed total waste recovery system Composting was to be an integral part of it. That empty space of land to the West of the big building was to have sited many rows of trommels and compost piles. But in his zeal to eliminate everything that made sense King Ian led the way to chop the composting facility from the plan, I think it saved about 1.5 million at the time. Penny wise and Pound foolish! We have been playing catchup ever since. Not only have we failed to divert 40% of the waste from the landfill but the cost of that unneccesary use of landfill has cost us money in lost opportunity costs, as landfill space gets more expensive with each load dumped.

Now the County's expert, who's last job was being cozy with incineration friendly operations, wants us to put off the idea again. Citing costs was his reason. Well I have some opinion for you - the cost of the next recommendation, which will be a multi-municipality incineration operation will be much more costly both in dollars and damage to the environment. So do we compost now or burn everything later, that unsaid debate will be a long and nasty one.