An Imperfect Solution To Trash: BENN

Published 05/27/2023 · Updated 05/26/2023

benn.logo

Sometimes the best thing you can do in a bad spot is just advance the ball down the course. Sage advice from a golfing buddy. For non-golfers, it means that since the perfect opportunity does not exist at this time, with this stroke just move the ball into a better position. The key word is perfect. Perfect does not exist.

This sage advice also applies to many of the challenges faced by city council. There are no perfect solutions. There only better or worse solutions.

The city’s Trail Road landfill site is nearing its end of life. Staff has been telling council this since before the turn of the century. Perhaps a bit of “the-boy-who-called-wolf” syndrome, but a valid warning nevertheless. That our elected officials have repeatedly decided to defer the problem to their successors is reflective of the dominance of matters political over matters municipal. The lead time to identify, get through the approval processes and actually create a new landfill site is about a decade-and-a-half.

Hit A Pothole? City Charm Will Fix It

I won’t bother attempting to fully dissect the myriad government imposed constraints and hurdles that are endemic to sold waste disposal. As I understand the failure to clearly communicate that passes for city reports, about half the solid waste generated in the city is outside the jurisdiction of the city department that is responsible for managing solid waste disposal. The rest … that is someone else’s problem to solve. A problem ignored, as previous councils have established, is a problem “solved”. Until it isn’t.

Suffice it to say that since people first started to congregate in villages, solid waste disposal has been a problem. It is a problem that will not go away, no matter how much money the municipality chooses to waste trying to educate people on the need to reduce the amount of solid waste they generate. No matter how much we put in the recycle bin, or in the green bin or … In short, it is a problem that will not go away no matter how much wishful thinking and pixie dust the powers that be disseminate.

There is a growing demand for electricity in Ontario. Demand that with the passage of time will not be met unless more power generating facilities are approved and constructed. This opens up the opportunity to integrate into the provincial and local grids electricity that is generated from renewable, net-zero sources. The lead time to identify, get through the approval process and construct a new power-generating facility is at least a decade.

Put the two thoughts together, and there is an opportunity to generate electricity for the local grid by using incinerators that are fueled in whole or in part by solid waste. Perfect? No. Better than continuing to bury our trash? Yes. Better than continuing to build power-generating facilities that burn fossil fuels? Yes.

This is not new technology. Many jurisdictions in Europe have been using solid waste fueled incinerators to generate electricity for decades. Many use existing technology to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions. Eliminate them entirely? No. But reduce them substantially? Yes.

Now factor in the much-vaunted requirement by the federal government to require that power generation in Canada be net-zero by 2035. The minister cites new technologies, either existing or under development, that will advance the cause. There are or will be federal dollars to make this happen.

As for references to the failed Plasco gasification project being a reason to not explore this opportunity, that technology has been deployed successfully in Europe. Plasco’s “face plant” had more to do with Plasco head Rod Bryden’s failure to secure sufficient capital to get the pilot plant over the logistics hurdles that are commonplace in these types of deployments.

That Kanata South Councillor Alan Hubley was the councillor to introduce the resolution asking staff to explore the possibility of solving two problems with one project is irrelevant to the potential solution. A broken clock is right twice a day is the metaphor that comes to mind.

Watson’s Dysfunctional Civic Legacy: BENN

This represents an opportunity to address two problems with one solution. Incinerators are not a perfect solution. They are just better than no solution. And when it comes to addressing the looming problem of the end of life plan for the Trail Road landfill site, that is what several consecutive city councils have accomplished. Nothing.

The best thing council can do in these circumstances is just advance the ball down the course.

Ron Benn, a finance executive, has been a member of the Centrepointe Community Association for the better part of three decades.