Incinerating waste, also known as Waste to Energy, causes the release of air pollutants that can be detrimental to our health and the environment of Canada. By incinerating, we lose our ability to reuse our precious resources and poison the environment and ourselves.

We ask that you join us in asking the Canadian Government to stop supporting incineration as an acceptable means to manage waste. There is no time like now to protect our environment and our health.

Waste to Energy is gaining popularity to deal with a large issue quickly, but not in the most effective way. It affects air emissions and contradicts municipal government’s waste diversion management plans (Morawski, 2007). By using incineration to dispose of waste, a demand for the waste is created, thus resulting in the infinite extraction of resources until they no longer exist (Gutberlet, 2011). Using our waste resources more responsibly by recycling and reusing will help keep the wild places in Canada beautiful. We can save our resources by not destroying them through incineration.

Under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, Canada-wide standards nearly eliminate dioxins and furans, known cancer causing agents released in incineration (Chandler, 2007), yet incineration is deemed to be “an effective and environmentally sound disposal method” (Government of Canada). Biological cycles, manufacturing process, mineral exploration and lifestyle have confirmed the necessity to bring an environmental and sustainable petition to the attention of the federal government.

On behalf of the Royal Roads students, we request that the federal government undertake a public policy review on waste incineration to preserve air quality, reduce greenhouse gas concentrations, and to stop wasting valuable resources that can be recycled instead of incinerated. We ask that stronger policies be created to encourage recycling and reusing of waste, that penalties be in place for creating air pollutants and that the use of alternative energy be encouraged.

We invite Canadians to try other strategies for waste management such as composting, reducing, reusing, and recycling, which are more ecological and affordable systems to deal with our waste resources.

For more information, see our power point “Incineration: What a Waste” (link)

References

Chandler, A. J. (2007). Review of dioxins and furans from incineration in support of a Canada-wide standard review. A report prepared for the Dioxins and Furans Incineration Review Group through a contract associated with CCME Project, 390-2007.

Government of Canada. (2015). Managing and reducing waste. Municipal Solid Waste and the Environment. Retrieved from https://www.ec.gc.ca/gdd-mw/default.asp?lang=En

Gutberlet, J. (2011). Waste to energy, wasting resources and livelihoods. INTECH Open Access Publisher.

Mauch, C. (2016). A future without waste? Zero waste in theory and practice. RCC Perspectives: Transformations in Environment and Society 2016, no. 3.