Dear Editor:
Re: No real alternative to incineration: Mayor, Burnaby NOW, April 10.
I disagree with Mayor Derek Corrigan's assertion that there is no real alternative to incineration. There are, of course, alternatives. We can continue to send our garbage to the landfill at Cache Creek or elsewhere.
None of the options for disposal of solid waste are attractive. The key is to select the least bad one.
Metro Vancouver made a policy decision some years ago to embrace incineration, which they call waste-to-energy and they have basically ignored the alternatives ever since. They went through a bogus public consultation process, which was effectively a public relations exercise to promote incineration.
The problem is now no one knows which approach is best since no effort was ever made to properly assess the costs and benefits of each. Incineration may be best or maybe not. No one knows.
What I do know is it is a lot easier to quantify the costs associated with land filling since we have been doing it for a long time.
What are the human health and environmental costs of incineration? What about the toxic ash that is left after incineration? The pollutants don't just disappear when the garbage is burned, they end up in the air we breath.
For me, the unknown human health and environmental risks of incineration are unacceptable.
Until we have a better understanding of what these risks are, Metro Vancouver should not be proceeding with their incineration program.
Garth Evans, Burnaby
