[SpongeG]

Surrey considers garbage incinerator for town centre


METRO VANCOUVER -- As Metro Vancouver gets ready to unveil a draft solid-waste management plan that calls for the use of incinerators by 2015, Surrey has already floated the idea of having one built near its town centre.

Metro Vancouver directors will meet Friday for a workshop to go over the plan, which suggests using so-called “waste-to-energy” plants to burn the region’s trash and provide electricity and district heating to nearby buildings.

The plan still has to go to public consultation, and get approval from both Metro and the provincial government, but Surrey Coun. Marvin Hunt said several cities have expressed an interest in having an incinerator in their community.


full article: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Surrey+considers+garbage+incinerator+town+centre/2295734/story.html

[jlousa]

As long as it's using the latest technology and is maintained to the highest standard, the new gasification incinerators are probably our best bet. Produce electricity locally as well as using the excess heat to heat a complete neighbourhood.

[officedweller]

That's a big change for Surrey - which at one time was threatening to pull out of Metro Vancouver and ship its trash to the USA.

[Distill3d]

Wow...Surrey seems to be on the environmental forefront. I remember a while back there was talk of building a 30 floor Urban Farm to produce livestock and produce locally. Not sure whatever happened to that proposal, but it would be awesome to see.

[LeftCoaster]

I don't know much about the technology, what kind of emissions or other negative attributes do these things have? I'm surprised Surrey would want one right in the CC.

[Distill3d]

I don't know much about the technology, what kind of emissions or other negative attributes do these things have? I'm surprised Surrey would want one right in the CC.

you can find out more from this website: www.enerwaste.com (http://www.enerwaste.com/w2e.html)

[allan_kuan]

Generally... new waste to energy plants (as they are called nowadays) are much cleaner than their historical predecessors. They emit fewer emissions than before and in some cases some incinerators in Europe have been designed to integrate easily within the urban design and fabric rather than standing out as an ugly mess.

I find the idea of Surrey taking this into consideration to be a surprise and a benefit. In a way it shows a small commitment to going green... something that I haven't seen much of in the South of Fraser lately due to continued suburban expansion.

[geoff's two cents]

No matter how I think of it, I can't picture a waste to energy plant as part of Surrey's downtown revitalization. Despite how much of an improvement these things obviously are on past models, any pictures I've seen have them in quite out-of-the-way locations, such as http://sustainablecities.dk/en/city-projects/cases/copenhagen-waste-to-energy-plants

I suspect the reason for this has as much to do with the smell and noise of the garbage trucks going in as the emissions from the plant itself, which I understand to be relatively negligible.

The closest I can see this getting to Surrey's Central City neighborhood is the industrial flats adjacent to Scott Road station.

[Whalleyboy]

if it was part of central i would have to agree with it being down around scottroad. i could also see it possibly in the guildford area

[officedweller]

From the Now:

Barbecue's worse than incinerator: Hunt
-TRASH TALK/Surrey councillor hot for waste-to-energy proposal

Ted Colley
Surrey Now

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Battle lines are being drawn as Metro Vancouver takes a hard look at using more incinerators to dispose of the region's solid waste.

The region generates about 3.5 million tonnes of solid waste per year with a little more than half of that being recycled. The rest is dumped in either the Vancouver or Cache Creek landfills, or burned in Metro's Burnaby incinerator.

The Cache Creek landfill is scheduled to close in the next few years, leaving Metro to find another way to dispose of the 500,000 tonnes of waste dumped there each year.

Incineration - or waste-to-energy disposal (wte) - appears to be the frontrunner.

Surrey Coun. Marvin Hunt chairs Metro's waste management committee and he's a big fan of wte. One of its most vocal opponents is Zero Waste Vancouver's Helen Spiegelman.

Her organization, like others, opposes incineration on the grounds that it simply shifts the burden of pollution from earth to sky. Nonsense, says Hunt.

ZWV states all incinerators release dangerous chemicals like dioxins into the air.

Hunt acknowledges the truth of that statement, but notes the 20-year-old Burnaby incinerator currently used by Metro releases a tiny fraction of the amount of dioxin allowed under the facility's operating permit.

"All these people talk about is incineration, but I want to know where's the problem? The one in Burnaby is constantly upgraded and it's one of the cleanest stacks in North America," Hunt said.

In terms of dioxin emissions, he said, the Burnaby incinerator is nine times cleaner than the Vancouver landfill. A new incinerator designed and built using current technology, he said, would improve that by a factor of four.

"Spend two hours in front of your barbecue and you'll get dioxin exposure equivalent to 10 years from our incinerator," Hunt said.

ZWV also attacks the incineration method for excessive cost, but Hunt said the plants could be used to generate electricity and heat that can be sold to industry or even residential properties.

"I don't have the numbers in front of me, but across 35 years a landfill would cost three or four billion dollars to operate. Waste-to-energy will cost, I believe, about $1.8 billion, about half."

Metro's leadership will have to decide if it wants to go to wte and if so, whether to build several smaller incinerators across the region, or one big one to handle all the garbage. Hunt favours a single mega burner and he'd like to see it in Surrey.

"If I was dictator of the world, I'd plunk it in the heart of City Centre and make it look like an office building so nobody knows. The political reality? That's not going to happen."

It has been done elsewhere, however. Paris built a huge incinerator right on the banks of the Seine, not far from the Eiffel Tower. There's another in downtown Copenhagen.

"In Copenhagen, Embassy Row is just down the street from the waste burner because the air is cleaner there than the ambient air of the city. That's because of all the scrubbers they use to clean it."

Metro now diverts about 55 per cent of its solid waste from landfills and has set itself the goal of raising that to 70 per cent by 2015.

Waste-to-energy is one way Metro believes can help achieve that. Hunt is certainly hot for it.

Zero Waste Vancouver was not available for comment before the Now's press time.

© Surrey Now 2009


Found some links to the Paris facility:

http://www.letsrecycle.com/do/ecco.py/view_item?listid=37&listcatid=325&listitemid=10093

http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=14769

http://www.syctom-isseane.com/edi/presentation-projet-isseane/projet.htm

http://www.cospp.com/display_article/341387/122/CRTIS/none/none/1/New-waste-to-energy-plant-feeds-heat-to-western-Paris:-DE-has-the-power-to-change-our-lives

Copenhagen:

http://sustainablecities.dk/en/city-projects/cases/copenhagen-waste-to-energy-plants

[WarrenC12]

Old stereotypes need to be re-examined. Clean burning incinerators aren't so bad.

Check this article on recycling. It's sad, but you can't ignore facts:

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2305057

Trucking garbage to Cache Creek is a joke.

[djmk]

"Spend two hours in front of your barbecue and you'll get dioxin exposure equivalent to 10 years from our incinerator," Hunt said.


i spend hours in front of my bbq in the summer and i eat whatever i was cooking. that does not sound so healthy any more....

[nickinacan]

It is funny that they brought up Copenhagen as I was just there last month. I actually didn't even realize that it was so close to the city centre, until I saw it from the top of one of the churches, next to long row of wind turbines. It is only a small one, but the air was clean and clear. After that experience and learning a little about it, anyone would be crazy to be against this. The benefits are just too good to pass up. And don't even get me started about what we can learn from Iceland!

[mr.A]

lets get on with it. I grow up with it and they have improved over the years and are cleaner than dumping and trucking to a landfill.Also generate clean energy. What are we waiting for the Europeans survived all these years with incinerators.