Dear Editor (Don Horne)
20/02/01
Why is a move to having a “foreign” waste management company deal with our composting such an advance in the handling of our own waste?
There are so many facets to the “garbage debate” I don’t know where to start. The important thing for everybody to remind themselves is that waste management woes are built into the County form of government. With transient councilors, rapid downsizing and frequent changes of staff not to mention political trends and outsourcing is it any wonder our institutional memory is dimmed!
For a bit of history; since the 1970s Northumberland County has been planning its waste management. Following the trends of the industry and government dictates they have conducted at least one major master plan and a couple of reviews. The total cost of all of this is at least $3 million dollars. The result is a partially completed Multi-Resource Facility (MRF) and a couple of abandoned landfill projects. It would not be unfair to say that the County’s efforts have cost in total at least $10 million dollars of taxpayers money to date over three decades.
There have been many reasons for this but the major reason has been backyard politics by councilors over the last thirty years. Landfills would be sited in unpopular areas: Baltimore, Cobourg, Port Hope, Seymour. The much lauded MRF was only half built because of the fear of bigger budgets and pandering to local politics in Hope Township. We are only recycling 60% of what comes through the door and only 60% of the waste stream comes through the recycling door. Only 36% of our garbage, in real terms, goes through the MRF. What a waste of potential.
We know two things: one is that the MRF was designed to be a composting plant and that 40% of the waste stream is organic and should be composted. Both Halifax and Edmonton have been cited by experts as models for the world. Why did Northumberland drop the ball in 1993. There are many reasons given but none have been properly explained, but moving on the position of a half filled MRF with the capacity for composting, it is wide open to many suggestions for the future.
So here’s my suggestion: bite the bullet and finish the MRF, we already have the plans and approvals in place and then do for ourselves what the company in Newmarket is offering to do for us – compost. Amortise the whole project over twenty years, run the place like a business in the private sector and huge savings will accrue to the taxpayer.
ben burd