A cabinet shuffle Wednesday, August 18 replaced the Minister of the Environment. The new minister, Hon. John Wilkinson, should be strongly encouraged to put a definitive stop to incineration.
Minister of the Environment: Hon. John Wilkinson <minister.moe@ontario.ca>
Constituency office: Hon. John Wilkinson <jwilkinson.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org>
The Minister should consider...
Deadpan narration, a clever script and high quality photography make this video a compelling pitch to support California's state senate bill to ban single-use plastic shopping bags.
From the creative activists at Waste Not! Carroll in Frederick and Carroll counties, Maryland USA.
The Surrey Leader and other local papers in the lower mainland ran a six part series by Jeff Nagel (BC Local News) on the decision the Greater Vancouver Regional District is currently contemplating. In one scenario, there would be six new incinerators in the region.
In case the articles disappear off the web, PDF reprints are attached to this article (see below).
Part 1 - Burning questions April 30, 2010
A coalition of citizens and NGOs from Durham Region, Toronto and elsewhere in Ontario held a rally at Queen's Park to tell the Ontario government that incineration is not a sensible solution to our growing waste problem. Speakers addressed the current situation in Durham Region and the ambiguous stance of the Ontario government.
Video from the Rogers Cable TV Durham (channels 10 and 63), Thu May 13 2010
This story in the Toronto Star illustrates the difficulties with recycling. Waste reduction must remain our priority.
The article also hints that there could be an announcement soon by the Ontario Minister of the Environment about changes to the Waste Diversion Act. Last year, the MoE circulated a policy discussion on extended producer responsibility which, if implemented, could shift the burden of disposal from municipalities and onto the producers, thus giving them incentives to reduce packaging and non-recyclable materials.
Update: Dave Martin, Policy Adviser, Greenpeace Canada, in a letter to the editor in the Toronto Star, restates Greenpeace's opposition to incineration. As well, Dr. Paul Johnston, Principal Scientist, Greenpeace Research Laboratories, University of Exeter, responds in a blog posted on the greenpeace.ca site.
This series of three articles on incineration and the Durham Region incinerator proposal was published in the Toronto Star over the Easter weekend. The Star also published an editorial Tuesday April 6 that could have been written by an incinerator lobbyist.
The sub-headline "Even Greenpeace has stopped objecting" in part 3 is taken out of context. Greenpeace Canada has posted a blog entry by Dr. Paul Johnston from the Exeter lab at Greenpeace International.
Looking at statistics from the DontGetBurned.org web site, it looks like some 300 letters got sent just from that site by the April 2 deadline for comments on the Ministry Review of the Environmental Assessment study. We hope visitors to this site sent in their own to add to the total.
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