more on Annapolis Royal : re solid waste

Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 23:45:47 -0400
To: <sust-mar@chebucto.ns.ca>
From: jslakov@TartanNET.ns.ca (Jan Slakov)
Cc: l.s.mcgowan@ns.sympatico.ca
Precedence: bulk
Return-Path: <sust-mar-mml-owner@chebucto.ns.ca>

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Greetings to Sust-mar people,   Feb. 6

Thanks to David Wimberley for the article on Annapolis Royal.

Annapolis Royal has also gained recognition locally and with the United
Nations for its decision to buck the trend towards "regionalization" in
solid waste management and to aim for Zero waste poduction for its 4oo year
anniversary in 2005.

Members of the Annapolis County Environmental Protection Association (ACEPA)
have been very helpful to me and others in our local environmental group,
Enviro-Clare, in our efforts to argue for reducing waste production and for
handling what waste we produce with the three "l's":low-cost, low-tech and
local.

If you would like to contact ACEPA,  call (902) 532-2729.

Below is my latest letter-to-the-editor re: the waste issue.

all the best, jan
**********************************************************
Background:

Formerly, each Nova Scotia municipality handled its own waste. To our great
shame, several communities got rid of their waste by burning it in open
dumps until only a few years ago when the government banned burning (or
decided to enforce already existing laws).

The provincial government then went on to decide that simply dumping our
waste in holes in the ground was not a good solution and that it would be
better to have landfills with plastic liners and leachate collection
systems. Since these "second generation" landfills will be expensive, the
Province passed Solid Waste-Resource Management Regulations which divided
the province up into regions. The regions would pay for the landfills as the
individual municipalities in the regions could never afford to build their
own "second generation" landfills.

This sounds good enough until it is put into practice. As might be expected,
the trend has been to try to put the new regional landfills into "marginal"
communities (those with minorities, low populations, etc.). For instance,
Annapolis County was to get the landfill for its region, which included
Kings county. But Annapolis County citizens put up some very effective
resistance and the plan was soundly defeated. The citizens formed a group,
ACEPA, and have gone on to find and try to implement alternatives to large
regional landfills and centralized composting and recycling.

The whole process is frustrating. I find it personally difficult to be
critical of local municipal officials even if they have been exasperatingly
non-responsive and maybe even sexist in the way they have ignored many of
our concerns. They are, after all, nice guys (and I don't really think they
are out to ruin their communities; they just don't have a very pro-active
attitude.). But they are merrily complying with this regionalization plan
which will not do what really needs to be done about our waste problems.
What really needs to be done? Mainly get lots of the stuff that is available
in stores to be banned out of the stores so it never gets produced in the
first place. Also a variety of small-scale projects which would hire local
people to do things like manage community compost facilities (instead of
getting a bunch of expensive equipment to have a big centralized compost
facility)... Also true back and forth education.

The letter-to-the-editor below will be sent out to local papers today. I
would be pleased to get any feedback.

all the best, Jan

PS I think the only way to get more responsible waste management processes
going in this province is if people inform themselves and speak out on the
issue. Laurie McGowan and I can both provide any of you with more
information if you would like it.
*****************************************************************
Dear Editor,                 Feb. 4

As many of you know, Enviro-Clare has been trying to work with various
government levels to improve waste management in our area.

We are basically in favour of low-cost, low-tech and local solutions to this
problem. 

We are concerned that regionalization in waste management, as in school
boards and hospital boards, is tending to make it harder to go the
"low-cost, low-tech, local" route. Now the Western Region Waste-Resource
Management Committee (with jurisdiction extending from Digby to Barrington!)
has become an Authority. The new name says a lot. Enviro-Clare has long
pushed for more and better waste management education, grassroots education.
The authority tells us it has already done education. Yes, it has done some
things, but to be truly effective, education ought to be ongoing and it
should be a two-way street, with decision-makers getting input from everyday
citizens about what can be done to cut down on our waste production as well
as providing information for citizens about what they can do.

It is true that the Province has pushed municipalities into forming this
large regional Authority. But the municipalities were not obliged to sign
and indeed, one in our region has not (and others in other regions).

The Authority is now well on the way to getting a green cart system for
collections of compostable waste. What if you do not want the green cart?
According to the manager for our region, Mike Gilbertson (1-800-569-0039 or
742-4451) "homeowners could refuse a cart if they made a commitment to deal
with their organic waste or if they want to share a cart with a neighbour". 

It looks like little or no effort will be put into encouraging people to set
up small scale composting operations so my guess is that most people in our
region will take a cart. Then what happens? Well, their organic waste gets
picked up not by a human being; these carts are designed to be picked up by
a special truck with a hydraulic lifting system. Then the organics will be
taken to ONE CENTRAL location for composting. Can you imagine all the fuel
that will be burned to get organics from, say, Brier Island to Clare or
Yarmouth (the two most likely sites for the central facility)?

Recycling will be centralized too. I am pretty sure this means that only one
of the recycling operations now working in our region will continue. Bye,
bye to local jobs!

Sure, centralization is easier from the point of view of a manager; but it
does not make sense environmentally or in terms of keeping some local
control of management and keeping local jobs.

The province made a step forward when it banned open burning of garbage.
Burning plastic, rubber, etc. produces real poisons. 

But it looks like we are going backwards, even from the point of view of
burning. Instead of burning garbage, we will be burning diesel fuel to truck
the stuff all over the place (and to lift it into the trucks). Diesel fuel
is relatively cheap right now. But even so, this centralized plan will be
and already is very expensive. (And guess who pays?) If ever the government
taxes fuel in order to meet its greenhouse gas commitments, we will have a
huge garbage collection system that will become even more costly.

If any reader would like more information, contact Mike Gilbertson (phone #
above) or Jan Slakov (837-4980) or any other member of Enviro-Clare.

Sincerely,

Jan Slakov, Weymouth, NS 837-4980



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