Re: “Metro Vancouver should end garbage incineration: Study.”
Incinerators are heavy polluters that are not any better to the environment than garbage landfills. I agree with the report written by Marc Lee that notes that incineration has little benefits for waste reduction and lowers the quality of health and air. Electricity generated by burning garbage is not any better than using a coal- or oil-based generator, seeing as they pollute just as much. Also, as stated in the report, burning garbage does not get rid of it altogether, it just creates ash that must be landfilled.
Building another incinerator is just going to add to the pollution and the ash created. If another incinerator is built, there will be no need for making further efforts to recycle because there will be extra garbage capacity, and the objective for diverting 70 per cent of waste from landfills by 2015 will not be completed.
Yes, we will have more electricity, but the pollution created offsets by far that benefit. If we do continue to reduce waste to nothing, the incinerators will become useless and will have to be torn down and the new incinerator will be a waste of money. Increasing the recycling capacity is a far better option.
If the government doesn’t care about pollution from incinerators, then please at least think about the next generation and how the air quality will be for us.
Jonathan Wang, Grade 7
Berkshire Park Elementary
