Energy from waste proposal denounced
By Richard Blanchard

Using an energy from waste facility would dramatically increase the costs of disposing waste for the county, Simcoe County councillors learned last week.

Members of the Corporate Services committee received a business case analysis of the costs of disposing of waste at the proposed landfill in Tiny Township, compared to the costs of building an energy from waste facility or shipping the county's waste to a facility outside of the county.

The report prepared by Genivar Inc. estimated the cost of disposing waste at the new Site 41 facility at $101.50 per tonne while constructing a county energy from waste facility would cost $214.50 per tonne with a new facility costing almost $10,000,000 per year in capital costs over a 20 year period.

Shipping the waste to an existing energy from waste plant would be cheaper at $161 per tonne.

However, would also leave the county more dependent on outsiders to dispose of waste.

Rob McCullough, the Manager of Environmental Services said in his accompanying report that "the thermal treatment options, both the county facility and export facility, have higher costs and a greater degree of business risk than County landfill site 41.

"The export landfill scenarios is comparable in costs to county landfill Site 41, however it has a higher level of uncertainty and risk associated with it than Site 41," he said.

The annual cost of disposing waste at the new landfill at Site 41 would be $1,421,000 compared to $3,003,000 at an energy from waste facility and $2,254,999 at an out of county energy from waste facility.

Members of the Corporate Services committee voted to defer discussion on the report until the November meeting of the committee to allow more time to review the report.