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And if you thought Toronto could not get any worse!
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| itikia |
Garbage crisis looms: Report
Michigan may reject T.O.'s trash
Other sites would fill up in 6 months
KERRY GILLESPIE
QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU
If Michigan bans Ontario trash, all the available landfill space in this province would be filled within six months, a report obtained by the Toronto Star shows.
After that, garbage could wind up rotting on front lawns, piling up in parks and wreaking havoc on businesses, says the report by environmental consulting firm Gartner Lee.
The province received the report warning about the landfill shortage eight months ago. The environment minister has not responded yet and the report has not been made public.
As yet, the province has not taken any of the steps the report recommended to develop a contingency plan.
Fears of a border closing are growing. Last month the Michigan House of Representatives passed legislation that would allow the state to ban Canadian garbage with 90 days notice.
Before that can happen, the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate need to pass legislation giving states control over the flow of garbage. The U.S. House could vote as soon as Monday.
Even if Ontario decided today to plan for the potential crisis, it could take six months to build more space in existing landfills to handle the 3.5 million tonnes that goes to Michigan annually.
Toronto, York, Durham and Peel hired Gartner Lee to come up with a plan for garbage in case Michigan politicians make good on their threat.
The report includes a list of 12 Ontario landfills that could take garbage in a crisis and six recommendations for provincial action to make it possible.
The province needs to support the contingency plan, pre-approve sites to take trash, set price controls and determine how to increase the built capacity at landfills, the report says.
It also recommends fast tracking all current environment assessments for landfill expansions and improving the process to make it easier to build landfills or other waste disposal facilities, like incinerators.
The province hasn't done any of these things.
No one from the provincial government would speak to the Star for this story.
The consulting firm looked at trucking garbage to Quebec and as far as Winnipeg before determining the only feasible options were landfills in Ontario.
The province regulates what kind of waste landfills may take, how much, and where it's from.
On paper, landfills in the province have room for 85 million tonnes of garbage, but that space is meant to last decades.
"All possible contingency disposal capacity available at operating landfills could be completely utilized in 28.5 weeks," the report says.
Building landfills costs millions of dollars, can take six months and can't be done in the winter, industry insiders say. |
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| Jayx1 |
Looks like canadian NIMBYism is about to come hoem to roost.
It will look good on all of us. Maybe it's time we stop the NIMBY nonsense? |
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| Crazy Serb |
"May"... "Could"... what's the worry?
we "may" get hit by an asteroid that "could" destroy the whole planet in a few minutes...
I'm sure there is someone out there that will decide to deal with this when (and if) that Michigan rejection happens. |
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| Qiang |
| the whole point is to have a PLAN before it happen and it looks very likely *may* ... *could* :haha: |
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| dEsidEL |
what do other major cities do with their garbage i wonder .. ? heaven forbid that Toronto is the ONLY city on Earth with a garbage problem ..
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| Moral Hazard |
| I say we make a few artificial islands in Lake Ontario out of it! |
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| malek |
| easy dig a hole and fill it, how hard is that:rolleyes: |
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| Tordan |
| quote: | Originally posted by malek
easy dig a hole and fill it, how hard is that:rolleyes: |
/me sets the environmentalists lose on malek. |
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| EvilTree |
| quote: | Originally posted by Tordan
/me sets the environmentalists lose on malek. |
Those enviros are pretty vicious. More hotter they are, more vicious they are. |
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| dEsidEL |
| quote: | Originally posted by EvilTree
Those enviros are pretty vicious. More hotter they are, more vicious they are. |
and the hairier their armpits are .. ? :wtf:
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| malek |
| quote: | Originally posted by Tordan
/me sets the environmentalists lose on malek. |
well, human sanitation should be considered first.
It sounds like an emergency and there's absolutely no chance to be taken when talking about a city the size of Toronto. Piling garbage for more than a couple of weeks shouldn't be an option.
And if I remember well, Ontario isn't a small province so if they consider driving garbage as far as winnipeg, then couldn't they just dump it in a remote place in Northern Ontario... (and why are TO's politicians assuming that 'peg would 'accept TO's garbage) |
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| dEsidEL |
| quote: | Originally posted by malek
well, human sanitation should be considered first.
It sounds like an emergency and there's absolutely no chance to be taken when talking about a city the size of Toronto. Piling garbage for more than a couple of weeks shouldn't be an option.
And if I remember well, Ontario isn't a small province so if they consider driving garbage as far as winnipeg, then couldn't they just dump it in a remote place in Northern Ontario... (and why are TO's politicians assuming that 'peg would 'accept TO's garbage) |
can MTL take some ..? there's more than plenty to go around :toothless
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