Vancouver’s garbage and where to dump or burn it has become an issue for the NPA in the civic election campaign.
And it’s left Vision Vancouver wondering whether NPA mayoral candidate Kirk LaPointe has done his homework on a topic Mayor Gregor Robertson addressed three years ago when his ruling party announced it was against the mass burning of trash in the city and region.
At a press conference outside the B.C. Lung Association Thursday, LaPointe said Robertson and Vision are doing nothing to stop the building of a proposed incinerator in Metro Vancouver.
He also said Vision Vancouver is proposing a “gasification plant” at Main and Kent streets that goes against the party’s environmental agenda. He said the technology is not proven.
“All of this effort by Gregor Robertson is more evidence of a great city badly run,” said LaPointe, who was flanked by candidates and a handful of South Vancouver residents, including park board candidate Jay Jagpal’s mother, holding placards advocating to keep the city’s air clean. “We need to stop [Robertson] in his tracks on this one. He would contaminate a neighbourhood with noxious fumes.”
LaPointe called for other options to handling Vancouver’s garbage, including dumping it in landfills, recycling it and “other ways to sort through it that are going to be far, far less harmful and are going to take care of our garbage.”
He didn’t provide specifics or say whether he was lobbied by Belkorp Industries Inc., which co-manages the Cache Creek landfill where much of Vancouver’s garbage is dumped.
“I’ve spoken to a wide range of industry people on both sides of the issue,” LaPointe told reporters.
Vision Vancouver Coun. Raymond Louie, who also serves as vice-chairperson of the Metro Vancouver board, said Metro Vancouver has yet to decide on a location in or outside the region, or sign off on whether one or more waste facilities would be incinerators or employ different technology.
But Louie said Vancouver has been clear it doesn’t want an incinerator in the city, despite two locations being identified last year by Metro Vancouver.
As for a gasification plant, Louie pointed to the city’s website that spells out the city’s position on the proposal for the industrial area at Main and Kent streets.
He noted that “gasification” is a non-incineration process that converts material that can’t be recycled or composted into a gas similar to natural gas which can be used to produce heat and electricity.
“This is the technology that we’re willing to look at,” said Louie, noting the city will require key conditions be met, including no incineration of garbage, stringent air quality guidelines, maximum diversion of compostables and recyclables and that waste heat is captured for neighbourhood energy.
Louie said LaPointe has been silent on environmental issues such as the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline in Burnaby, coal shipments, transit and environmental initiatives outlined in the city’s greenest action plan that the NPA voted against.
“He’s again ducking the major issues that are facing us,” Louie said.
Metro Vancouver wants a new “waste-to-energy” facility because the 1988-era incinerator in Burnaby is aging. It handles about a quarter of the region’s garbage. It generates enough electricity to power 16,000 homes and recovers about 8.000 tonnes of metals annually.
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