Garbage, or to use the more politically correct term waste, is big business. Really big. It can also be a messy business, particularly when politicians get involved.
So no big surprise then that the left hand doesn't seem to care what the right hand is doing at Metro Vancouver when it comes to regional waste management.
On the one hand, Lower Mainland municipalities have policies in place to divert up to 80% of waste by reducing, reusing and recycling; on the other hand, Metro Vancouver has just shortlisted 10 proposals to increase its incineration capacity by 370,000 tonnes per year through a new $500-million-plus waste-to-energy incinerator.
And make no mistake, a second incinerator is being fast-tracked by Metro Vancouver officials.
The regional authority wants to have a site selected by 2015 and the fuse lit by '18. One site under consideration is on Tsawwassen First Nation treaty lands while two others are on Vancouver Island.
Already the startling dichotomy between Metro Vancouver's two approaches - recycling versus burn, baby, burn - is raising fears that the region could be put in the bizarre position of having to import waste just to feed the insatiable thirst of a second incinerator.
Which may explain why Metro Vancouver is considering a bylaw next week that some might call a thinly veiled attempt to corner the market on garbage by regulating where waste management firms can dump.
In its rush to incinerate, Metro Vancouver is also running roughshod over numerous conditions set down by the provincial government in 2011, 2012 and again earlier this year.
First, there's that pesky little matter about being a good neighbour. One of the conditions was that before an incinerator could proceed "at a minimum Metro, Vancouver must establish a working group with the Fraser Valley Regional District [FVRD] on the potential impact to the [common] airshed due to additional waste-to-energy capacity."
Regardless of however well-intentioned they were meant to be, the recent dog-and-pony shows put on by Metro Vancouver officials in the Fraser Valley do not substitute for consultation or the establishment of a working group with the FVRD.
Then there are questions over the economic viability of a $500-million incinerator.
The B.C. government's conditions include the requirement that "communities must target 70% waste diversion through reducing, reusing and recycling before they consider waste-to-energy as an alternative to landfilling."
A condition that raises an obvious question: If the target is met, will there be enough garbage left over to feed not only Metro Vancouver's existing 280,000 tonnes-per-year incinerator but a second one as well?
Keep in mind that Canadians throw away more garbage than any other country in the developed world. According to a report by the Conference Board of Canada, we produced 777 kilograms of waste per capita in 2009, with more than 75% of it ending up in landfills or incinerators. That's a lot of potential for recycling before incineration should even be on the table as an option.
But the most critical condition that the B.C. government set down was in 2012 when new regulations were adopted that require all proposed waste-to-energy facilities in the Lower Mainland or Fraser Valley to go through a full and mandatory environmental assessment.
And in case that point was missed by anyone, it was reiterated this past February when then B.C. environment minister Terry Lake informed the legislature that the government had been "very clear that if an in-region waste-to-energy facility is considered by Metro Vancouver, it will undergo a full B.C. environmental assessment process and full consultation with the Fraser Valley Regional District."
Lighting the fuse by 2018 is beginning to look a lot like wishful thinking.
Ironically, it was only 10 years ago that Metro Vancouver in its then incarnation as the Greater Vancouver Regional District opposed plans for a gas-fired power plant in Washington state due to "its proximity to a major residential area, the city of Abbotsford" and "the adverse health impacts of plant emissions on local residents."
But that was then and this is now.
This time Metro Vancouver seems intent on marching to the beat of its own drummer, paying only lip service to its neighbours and - if it can get away with it - the province.
Dermod Travis is the executive director of IntegrityBC (www.integritybc.ca).
