Report on incinerator presentation before conference of Canadian municipal officials
by Mike Ewall, Energy Justice Network & Zero Waste Canada
On Feb 12th, 2015, I presented at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Sustainable Communities Conference in London, Ontario. It was the first time they held a panel to present both sides of a polarized issue. The session was well-attended and well-promoted. It was titled “The Two Sided Coin: Navigating Through Polarized Perspectives.” Without any mention of incineration in the title, that’s what the entire panel was about. The organizers recruited hard and got about 90-some people to attend, many of them local government officials from throughout Canada. Many attended, not knowing it was all about incineration, and got quite an education.
Panelists were:
-John Foden President, Canadian Resource Recovery Council
-Mike Ewall Founder & Director, Energy Justice Network / Advisory Board Member, Zero Waste Canada
-Peter Veiga Supervisor, Waste Operations, Waste Management Services, Durham Region (building new incinerator in Ontario)
-Patricia Ross, Board Vice-Chair, Fraser Valley Regional District
They had us paired up, first two with competing larger-level perspectives, and the last two with competing local perspectives. We made sure we got to get the last word in each, as there was no Q&A time… just small discussions at tables among which we circulated.
The presentation I gave is here, in PDF format (contact us for PPTX):
First, the highlights:
* We shifted opinions a lot! They did polls at the beginning and end. At first, 9% supported incineration, 23% opposed, 36% support it under certain conditions and 32% don’t know enough to choose. By the end, incinerator supporters increased from 9% to 11%, while opponents increased from 23% to 40%! Those who support under certain conditions dropped to from 36% to 30% and only 19% felt they still didn’t know enough to choose.
* After the panel, they had us mix into the audience’s tables and answer questions. I learned a lot between this and other networking afterward (even being flagged down later in the airport by a local official in Alberta who had many questions).
* In preparation, I put together a map of existing and proposed trash incinerators in Canada. See link here. Green are operating, yellow are proposed, red are the failed Plasco projects. Scroll down to turn layers on/off, and click on markers for more info on them.
* I learned about a couple of proposed biomass incinerators in Nova Scotia. One was a local official who was already skeptical of it being built in the middle of town and wanted more info to argue against it. The other was a company promoting it, so we need to find people willing to fight that one, at least.
* I learned that Nova Scotia and Newfoundland have provincial bans on incinerators and that Nova Scotia doesn’t actually digest/stabilize its residuals before landfilling as Paul Connett has been reporting for years. We should figure out what’s up with this discrepancy, since it’s an important example to point to, if it’s really going on (and since we should know if/why it stopped, assuming it used to happen). Nova Scotia officials also commented that they hit wall with 50% diversion and now think they need to focus on source reduction to get further.
* The Enerkem trash-to-ethanol project in Edmonton, Alberta is about to start up in a testing phase. It uses gasification as its first stage and is the first commercial scale facility of its type. A local councillor called it the “crown jewel” of their effort to avoid landfills, and seemed a little surprised at my skepticism that it’ll even work. He didn’t know about MSW gasification’s failures and wants to know more. Seems we’d better compile this info for him soon.
THE PANEL:
John Foden President, Canadian Resource Recovery Council
The panel started with the Canadian incinerator industry’s mouthpiece going first. John Foden started with a lengthy visual demonstration of how many excessive layers of packaging came with a pen he was mailed. Somehow this demonstration of wastefulness is supposed to make people favor incineration for all of that paper and plastic waste. He argued that “humans are rarely rational, even when we’re reasonable,” as if to paint anti-incinerator viewpoints as irrational. He even argued that presentations on incineration are usually biased since he thinks that incineration presentations are always asked to have balance by adding zero waste advocates, yet zero waste presentations never seek incinerator promoters for balance. (Patricia later countered that well, by pointing out that it’s pro-incinerator presentations that rarely balanced, yet her work in Fraser Valley has often involved putting on balanced public forums.)
Foden stated that there are 800 “energy from waste” plants world-wide. He claimed that they measure emissions real-time and that the info is tracked and goes to regulators… the common refrain (which I destroyed later, pointing out how just a few pollutants are monitored continually and that most are tested once a year… akin to setting a speed trap once a year and setting signs up warning drivers that a speed trap lies ahead).
He claimed that British Columbia has set the toughest standards for incineration.
Mike Ewall Founder & Director, Energy Justice Network / Advisory Board Member, Zero Waste Canada
I had 50 slides to squeeze into 10 minutes, and I insisted on getting through it (took me 12-13 minutes) in the time that Foden took (he went over by the same amount), despite a moderator who pressured me much more than she did Foden
Key points I hit:
-showed our new maps of incineration in Canada
-how incinerators are on the decline in the U.S. and how the world’s largest waste corporation (WMI) is moving away from them
-discussed how pyrolysis, gasification and plasma are incinerators and generally don’t work, citing Plasco and GBB’s assessment of these technologies as high risk
-held up a stack of papers documenting a decade of Covanta violations, including how they once were caught and fined for tampering with their continuous emissions monitors to make it seem as if they were in compliance when they weren’t
-mentioned how First Nations are targeted for incinerators in Canada
-presented data on how incineration is the most expensive and polluting way to make energy or to dispose of waste
-I mentioned how I was the one to predict Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s incinerator-related bankruptcy eight years before it happened, and suggested that local officials give Durham eight years to see how it works out for them before considering incinerators, since Durham’s is half the size of Harrisburg, and small incinerators are more likely not to work out economically (this really woke some Durham Region people up)
-talked about how continuous monitors (CEMS) aren’t used for more than a few pollutants, debunking Foden’s general claims of continuous monitoring
-made clear that incinerators require landfills
-pointed out that over 99% of incinerator siting efforts fail, mainly due to local opposition
-called out fake zero waste groups: National Zero Waste Council & Metro Vancouver / Zero Waste Committee
[See my powerpoint for details: http://www.ejnet.org/files/incineration/incineration-FCM-SCC2015.pdf]
Peter Veiga Supervisor, Waste Operations, Waste Management Services, Durham Region, Ontario
[The first new new incinerator in Canada in 20 years is almost completed there.]
Durham region produces 250,000 tons/year (including recyclables), and 150,000 residual (non-recycled waste)
Kirkland Lake (incinerator?) proposal failed.
They were shipping all of their waste to Michigan for a while.
There is now an agreement signed to stop exporting waste to Michigan.
They were using Pine Tree Acres landfill in Ontario?
More recently, they’ve been shipping waste to Modern Landfill in NY while building the new incinerator in Durham Region.
There’s a “stabilized landfill” in Halifax, but they discounted this because it’s still a landfill.
Landfills are 6% of Canada’s GHG emissions.
They plan to mine one of their landfills to burn the waste in it.
Patricia Ross, Board Vice-Chair, Fraser Valley Regional District
[She’s been a leader in fighting Metro Vancouver’s plans for new incinerators around Vancouver, BC]
Patricia really damaged their credibility, especially with Plasco quote about how they were being intellectually dishonest when claiming zero emissions. She gave a great account of how incinerator companies mislead communities, and covered many good points, reinforcing some I made, plus more.
Here’s that email from the Plasco Energy rep, which I think is precious…
The newspaper condensed it into this quote: “When I said no emissions, I meant from the conversion process….Of course there are emissions from the gas when used to produce electricity….We could say there are no emissions from the total process. But it would not be intellectually honest.”
Yet that is precisely what Plasco representatives were intentionally leading community representatives and media to believe. Patricia’s goal was for elected representatives to not simply accept incinerator lobbyists sales pitches as full disclosure, but rather encourage them to ask probing questions, intentionally seek an opposing point of view to ensure they have all information regarding the financial, environmental and health related risks in order to make a fully informed decision.
For more info, see: www.stoptheincinerator.com
The original Plasco email is here, which is rather emblematic of how gasification/plasma/pyrolysis incinerators are marketed:
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From: Richard Patten <rpatten@plascoenergygroup.com>
To: Patricia Ross
Sent: Mon Jun 02 09:57:22 2008
Subject: Hi
Sorry we didn’t get a chance to talk further. When I said “no emissions” I meant from the Conversion process. Which is different from other systems. We do produce a syngas that is cleaner than the natural gas I use in my home. Of course there are emissions from the gas when used to produce electricity. But, it is the cleanest of anything else going. And this comes from diverting 100% from landfill which emitts dirty Methane,let alone the dirty coal that is still producing Electricity in Ontario. If we just slod off the syngas in a pipeline or in cylinders to whoever. We couild say there were no emissions from the total process. But, it would not be intellectually honest. So, are you against cleanly converting garbage to a cleaner fuel?
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