By Lois E. Jackson

This Friday (July 30), the mayors and councilors that make up Metro Vancouver’s board of directors will decide on a new waste management plan for the region.

Throughout extensive public consultations on the plan we heard virtually universal agreement on actions designed to reduce waste generation in the first instance, and to maximize the beneficial use of those materials that do enter the waste stream. As result of input we received during the consultation process, the plan’s waste reduction and diversion initiatives have been strengthened.

We will, for example, work with provincial authorities to accelerate Extended Producer Responsibility programs that ensure industry involvement in managing the waste it produces. And we will focus Metro Vancouver’s national and international leadership efforts on tackling issues of packaging—a considerable source of garbage but one that is beyond Metro’s ability to address alone.

We have modified the plan to include per capita waste generation targets, and strengthened our target to move beyond our current waste diversion rate of 55 percent to 70 percent by 2015 and, hopefully, to 80 percent by 2020. We have included specific measures to ban all compostable organics and wood waste from disposal, to increase recycling in multi-family residences and on job-sites, and to build on the effectiveness of existing recycling and reuse programs.

But even with much greater emphasis on reducing and diverting waste from disposal, every realistic projection indicates that the region will still have more than one million tonnes of garbage a year to deal with.

Opinion is divided on how we ultimately manage that residual waste.

The plan’s proposed preference is for a publicly owned, in-region waste-to-energy solution that would generate revenue through the sale of electricity and district heating to offset capital and operating costs, and reduce greenhouse gas impacts by replacing fossil fuel use. Metro Vancouver’s existing waste-to-energy plant in Burnaby, which has operated for more than 20 years, currently generates $10 million in annual revenues from electricity and steam sales, for example.

In arriving at that preferred solution, Metro Vancouver commissioned an exhaustive, independent analysis of potential options. We took into consideration experiences in Europe, Asia, and other North American jurisdictions and examined waste-to-energy, landfilling, and pre-treatment of wastes prior to disposal, as well as combinations of those approaches.

Over the course of some 35 public meetings I attended personally, I listened very carefully to the concerns expressed by our neighbours in the Fraser Valley and by those advocating against incineration, and have ensured that those concerns were thoroughly understood and addressed.

But, at the end of the day, the objective, science-based analysis shows clearly that in economic, environmental, and social terms, waste-to-energy is the right choice.

That conclusion is consistent with positions taken by the Nobel Prize-winning UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, by the European Union Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks, by the U.K. Health Protection Agency, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the German Green Party, Environment Canada, and the B.C. chief medical health officer.

We recognize that some people hold contrary opinions. We have examined those opinions and published them on our Web site along with our analysis of them. With all respect, they simply do not hold up against the weight of scientific opinion from virtually every credible authority we have found.

Scientific analysis has shown there is no discernible difference between the various waste management options in terms of air quality impacts in the Lower Fraser Valley. We cannot help but note that the entire waste management system, not just a waste to energy plant, contributes less than one percent of airshed emissions, whereas open burning, which is broadly tolerated in Fraser Valley communities, contributes 60 times more of the particulate matter that is of such genuine concern to those with respiratory problems.

Stringent standards and modern waste-to-energy technology have reduced dioxin emissions to about one three hundredth of what they were, so that everyday combustion, such as the backyard barbeque, are now greater sources. Notwithstanding published images of belching coal-fired plants and analyses based on long since abandoned "bee hive burner" technology intended to raise public fears, the scientifically validated truth is that air quality and health concerns are not an issue around modern municipal solid waste incinerators. In fact, the U.K. Health Protection Agency now advocates against health impact assessments because they are no longer needed.

In economic terms, our financial forecasts suggest that, over a 35-year life cycle, publicly owned in-region waste-to-energy will, through electricity and heat sales, pay back capital costs and even generate a surplus, perhaps as much as $20 million. Landfills, on the other hand, create very little in the way of revenue, and our forecasts indicate a net cost of $1.5 billion (or $100,000 each and every day) during that same 35 years. Include pre-treatment of waste to reduce greenhouse gas and other emissions and that net cost is forecast to double.

And from a social perspective, we have been told repeatedly that we have a responsibility to deal with our waste in our own region and not foist that responsibility on others. The proposed plan gives us the opportunity to do the right thing.

Elected officials are expected to listen. And when voices are raised on every side of an issue with great emotion, the decision asked of elected officials is not an easy one. Yet I truly believe that if we adopt a scientific, evidence-based approach we will arrive at a plan that achieves our waste reduction and diversion targets, while meeting our inevitable disposal needs in a way that respects the interests of all involved.

Lois E. Jackson is the chair of the Metro Vancouver board of directors and the mayor of Delta.