Environmental groups raise concerns about waste-to-energy option to handle Ottawa’s garbage

A garbage truck picks up residential waste in Centretown Wednesday, May 29, 2024. as council gives rubber stamp to new curbside waste policy going into effect Sept. 30. (Leah Larocque/CTV News Ottawa)

As Ottawa’s Trail Road dump continues to fill up, the city is looking at possible options – including a waste-to-energy incinerator, which is raising concerns with some environmental groups.

At the city’s Environment and Climate Change Committee on Tuesday, councillors heard options from city staff about the next steps for dealing with the city’s garbage and concerns from the public.

The City of Ottawa has identified a waste-to-energy incinerator as one of the best options to deal with the city’s future garbage, but it would cost between $497 million and $862 million to build and there is a complex regulatory approval process.

With the Trail Road landfill expected to reach capacity in the next 10 to 15 years, the city is exploring options to deal with its trash. In 2023, council directed staff to explore “proven technologies” to handle the city’s future waste management needs, including looking at waste-to-energy incineration and mixed waste processing.

“Very problematic. It’s concerning to see this being considered,” says William van Geest, the executive director of Ecology Ottawa. “There are serious concerns from a health standpoint, from a climate standpoint, the pollution of air, water and soil. I don’t like seeing it.”

He says he’d like to see more of a focus on diversion instead.

“There are some fantastic organizations doing some great reuse of textiles, sharing materials of tools, sharing of equipment. The city had an option to pursue, pay-as you-throw, which would have reduced landfill contributions quite significantly,” he says.

Angela Keller-Herzog, executive director of Community Action for Environmental Sustainability (CAFES) Ottawa says she is worried about pollutants.

“The reality is that there’s hazardous, toxic ash that is produced. Some of it is filtered out, but some of it still goes up and then enters the rest of the environment, including deposition on soil and water,” she says. “We have started to study the issue and learn more. There are some serious health concerns. So, we have asked that Ottawa Public Health be fully involved in the terms of reference for this next study, and that there should also be a public engagement where the public gets to know what’s going on.”

It’s something city staff are considering.

“We’ll want to investigate that further. Wanting to understand and work with our partners in Ottawa Public Health also work with the province and the federal government when it comes to those measures, in order to understand, to make sure that we’re bringing the best information back for council’s consideration,” says Shelley McDonald, City of Ottawa director of Solid Waste Services.

She tells CTV News Ottawa the facility would be similar to the York-Durham site, just east of Toronto. She says a location for Ottawa’s waste-to-energy facility, will be “part of the next steps looking at siting and looking at those opportunities.”

Timelines

What the city decides to do will be a “multi-year process,” which may end up being decided by the next term of council.

“So, if it’s a new landfill or if it’s a waste energy technology, there is an environmental assessment that needs to take place, plus environmental compliance approvals that are required. And so, that is a multi-year process that could take up to ten years in order to receive that approval. So, working very closely with the province in order ensuring that the air, land and water is the safety of air, land and water is maintained,” says McDonald.

Capital Ward Coun. Shawn Menard, chair of the Environment and Climate Change Committee, says there is still time to get this right.

“We’ve given ourselves some breathing room. And we’ve got to make the right decision within that time that we’ve got now,” he says. “It doesn’t have to be a huge rush to make that decision. So, we want to get it right. And I think we are further along than we would have been before, based on the feasibility study staff have done and the options that we’re moving forward with analyzing into early next term.”

With files from CTV News Ottawa’s Josh Pringle

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