What will become of Metro Vancouver's garbage?
A plan by the Metro Vancouver regional authority would have taxpayers spending half a billion public dollars on an incinerator to solve the region’s garbage problem. But what would would that mean the City of Vancouver's plan to be the Greenest City by 2020?
In the following articles, VO digs deep into Metro Vancouver's garbage story.
Big companies and big money square off over Metro Van's $480m incineration plan
Within 2014, Metro Vancouver has to balance its regional sustainability mandate with a controversial plan to build a $480-million-dollar waste-to-energy incinerator that would burn a growing heap of future garbage. The issue is already polarizing environmentalists, the waste management industry and the business community in the region.
Metro Van and Fraser Valley Regional District butt heads over incinerator plan
The Fraser Valley Regional District has come out swinging against Metro Vancouver's incinerator plan with a scathing ad campaign, claiming that smoke from burning garbage will damage the Fraser Valley's airshed and cause health problems.
Big money for one company if Metro Van pushes incinerator plan through. Here's who'll make it.
Who stands to profit from the incinerator contract with Metro Vancouver? One of the region's wealthiest families, the Aquilinis, are among the players who may strike it big with a new incinerator deal.
- Andrea Reimer says Metro Van's incinerator plan from another eraVancouver Councillor Andrea Reimer recounts how waste-to-energy technology – innovated decades years ago – has captivated the minds of Metro Vancouver's key decision-makers, and how people with opposing views have struggle to be heard.
- As Europe shies away from burning trash, Metro Vancouver gears up for $480m waste-to-energy incinerator
Scandinavian countries that were once the champions of waste-to-energy incineration are now starting to turn their back on burning garbage and seeing the future in recycling. Denmark and Sweden have embraced recycling and are questioning the burning of what many now consider to be a valuable resource.
- Metro Vancouver's Burnaby incinerator burning through taxpayer money
The Burnaby incinerator, quietly burning a quarter of the region's waste, has proven a costly investment: $100 million has been spent on construction and upgrades to date. Even though the facility produces some electricity for the grid, it's uncertain whether the power is worth the cost for taxpayers.
- Port Moody councillor questions Metro Van's headlong rush to burn garbage
At the February meeting of Metro Vancouver's Zero Waste Committee, a Port Moody councillor asks tough questions about the push for an incinerator, in face of changing technology that allow far more garbage to be sorted and recycled than in 2009 when the incinerator plan was passed. An updated incinerator business plan has been requested. - Garbage burning plan 'dangerous' to health, says UBC expert
Expect to see more coughing, smog and respiratory illness if regional garbage incineration plan goes forward, says a UBC scientist who was initially commissioned to study air quality for Metro Vancouver. - "Dark star" of recycling expected to feed into proposed Metro Van incinerator
Can a recycling program become a program that guarantees fuel for a new incinerator? As of May 2014, non-profit group MMBC will become responsible for managing residential packaging and printed paper (PPP) on behalf of industry in May 2014. But recycling advocates worry that the group will create a monopoly within a diverse and competitive industry. - Turning garbage into electricity, metal and toxic ash at the Burnaby incinerator
What goes on inside the Burnaby incinerator, where a quarter of the region's waste is burned? Reporter Mike Chisholm goes inside to find out. - The "mind-boggling" path toward Metro Vancouver's $480 million incineration plan
People who opposed the $480 plan investment in incineration back in 2010 recall the pressure to jump on board with waste-to-energy. - Incinerators and coal factories equal in dismal economic benefits, U.S. study says
In terms of economic benefit produced relative to environmental impact, waste to energy incineration turns out to be worse than coal factories, which are banned in BC. - Europe trash tours sent Metro Van decision makers jet-setting away from nearby solutions
Metro Vancouver directors were sent on multiple trips to Sweden, France and Germany to examine incineration technology, while ignoring nearby San Francisco which managed to achieve a high rate of landfill diversion without incineration. - Fraser Valley decries incinerator plan, Burnaby mayor claims they're 'slamming door after cows' already out
Tension heats up between Fraser Valley Regional District and Metro Vancouver, as senior directors question why they weren't invited to consult on the FVRD's new waste management plan. - 2008 Paris trip first spark in Metro Van decision-maker's push for incineration here
The big push for incineration began in 2008, when waste-to-energy companies invited representatives of Metro Vancouver overseas to see how things are done in Europe. All the while, San Francisco is moving forward with an aggressive recycling program that led the nation, without incineration. - A waste-to-energy spin doctor's playbook
Some waste-to-energy incineration companies have offered more than just good planning and sustainability goals to win support from politicians. A front-runner in the Metro Vancouver incinerator project gives big to a U.S. Governor who supported a controversial bid that favours incinerators. - Peter Ladner on Metro Vancouver's garbage conundrum
The former Metro Vancouver Zero Waste Committee vice-chair and prominent founder of Business in Vancouverexplains how dwindling possibilities for new landfills and pressure to deal with increased waste led to support for a new garbage incinerator. - Vancouver Observer goes to North America's "Greenest City" to see how it handles garbage: VIDEO
Recycling leaders in San Francisco and Berkeley explain why incineration really isn't the only way to deal with waste, and how a no-burn policy can spark creative innovation in how people view their garbage. - The world’s biggest incinerator debacles. Could it happen to Metro Vancouver?
Detroit and Harrisburg, Penn. built two municipal incinerators that were to be a solution to those city's garbage problems while making revenues by generating energy. Both ended up generating massive debts that future residents are now stuck paying. - Metro Vancouver's proposed incinerator a “sink hole” for taxpayers: Canadian Taxpayers Federation
Canadian Taxpayer Federation spokesperson Jordan Bateman explains why the $480 million incinerator is a poor use of public funds, and how the real cost can end up being at least twice that amount. Nanaimo city officials take a beating over Metro Van's Duke Point incinerator plan
Already home to a pulp mill and an animal rendering plant, Nanaimo's Duke Point could be the site of a possible garbage incinerator to burn waste barged over from the Vancouver area.Proponents defend half-billion dollar incinerator as "least costly" way to deal with garbage
Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan said he hasn't seen anyone put forward any better options than investing a half-billion dollar waste-to-energy incineration.
BC Chamber of Commerce rejects Metro Van incineration and waste-flow control plan
“All viable options have not been on the table. And we’re convinced that our region can, and must, do better.”
What’s next?
The Vancouver Observer will continue to follow the waste-to-energy incineration story, the players, the proponents and the controversy as the region moves closer to making a final decision on what to do with its garbage. Additional voices are joining the conversation every day as more people become aware of this pressing issue.
Next month, Metro Vancouver will release a list of potential sites both inside and outside the greater Vancouver region where an incinerator may be sited. Opponents in Nanaimo are already gearing up to fight that proposal. And there will be more heated debates at the Metro Vancouver board table as the community begins to exert its influence.
The Vancouver Observerwill continue to be there to tell you all about the half billion dollar plan to send garbage "Up in Smoke". Stay tuned.
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