By Ian Holmes

Burning garbage off the radar for Nanaimo area

Nov 30, 2016 | 4:28 PM

NANAIMO — The contentious idea of a regional garbage burning plant in Nanaimo appears to be a completely dead issue, according to a draft Solid Waste Management Plan from the Regional District of Nanaimo.

The proposed plan, mapping out waste collection and recycling for the entire mid-island region, makes no mention of incineration.

RDN solid waste manager Larry Gardner says a garbage incinerator doesn’t make sense for the region.

“There isn’t any interest in going forward for any kind of thermal energy due to a number of factors,” said Gardner. “The amount of waste we generate, the capital costs, some concerns for emissions, some concerns that it might detract from source separation or recycling.”

Nanaimo council and the RDN board previously opposed a waste-to-energy incinerator in Nanaimo to burn Metro Vancouver’s garbage.

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The proposed ten year plan, slated to be finalized in 2017, includes a goal of significantly cutting down on the amount of waste going into the regional dump in Cedar.

“The highlight is a 90 per cent diversion rate. That translates into a 109 kilograms per person, per year,” said Gardner. “It’s a diversion and a small amount of waste.”

Currently, Gardner notes the landfill diversion rate locally is 68 per cent.

He says their plan includes two unique options to help hit that ambitious waste reduction target.

“What we’d like to do is have some regulation bylaws in place that we can actually require businesses have waste separation for waste recyclables and organics.”

The second option is licensing waste haulers who would be responsible for ensuring that their customers have proper recycling or food waste composting in place, according to the draft report.

Education and awareness programs to help ensure people are using the proper recycling, composting and recycling programs are proposed. The RDN is also contemplating enforcement of its rules.

Gardner says their waste reduction targets should help extend the life of the landfill until 2041 and potentially as long as 2056. He says the previous stance of possibly shipping mid-island waste elsewhere in the future has been reversed.

“Let’s look at an on-island option before we jump to just exports. So a little bit more ownership on how we manage our waste that we generate within our own area.”

Gardner says most of the heavy lifting in formulating a new Solid Waste Management Plan has been done. Community consultations are expected to happen in the spring ahead of formal approval.