Could the Metro Vancouver waste incinerator house of cards finally be tumbling down?

For more than a year-and-a-half, we have been warning about the minimum half-billion dollar boondoggle Metro politicians are trying to force on taxpayers. We have been active members of a coalition demanding Metro halt the plan, which could hike our garbage taxes by 40% and harm the private sector’s role in collection.

It feels like we’re gaining momentum. Nanaimo rejected a ludicrous plan that would have shipped Metro garbage across the Strait of Georgia to Vancouver Island to be burned there.

And now the city of Coquitlam, the fifth-largest member of Metro Vancouver, has called for a “revised business plan” for the incinerator. From the Vancouver Sun: 

“We want to take a look at the project before we start spending money,” Coquitlam Mayor Richard Stewart said. “Bylaw 280 is designed to stop leakage. There’s no question one of the variables (of the plan) is that we have enough solid waste.”

Coquitlam is concerned, quite rightly, that there won’t be enough material to fuel the incinerator, meaning items that could and should be recycled might end up being burned instead.

The Vancouver Observer, who is doing tremendous work covering this story, adds:

While the plan does call for increased recycling to keep garbage out of landfills (up to 70 per cent, with an aspirational goal of 80 per cent), it doesn't consider new advancements in recycling technology. In particular, material recovery facilities (MRFs) -- which have helped some cities reach a high landfill diversion rate, without incineration -- have been left out of the plan altogether. And given how much things have chanced, Nicholson believes Metro Vancouver needs to show the why it must spend half a billion dollars toward waste-to-energy incineration.

"We have to make the best decision we can for everybody and it’s the economic and environmental impacts that we have to consider,” [Coquitlam Coun. Neal] Nicholson said.

Sounds good to us, Coquitlam. Time to smarten up, Metro.