PERHAPS IT JUST that local councillors are starting to seek the common sense

involved in Dufferin County taking over full responsibility for waste management.

However, we suspect that the amazing degree of support for the idea that has already surfaced is due in large part to the threat Michigan’s lawmakers have issued to close its border to the millions of tonnes of waste now being imported from Ontario.

At present, it seems that nearly all Dufferin’s eight local municipalities have already passed or plan to pass resolutions indicating support for the county controlling the “total waste stream,” Amaranth being a possible exception.

The first two resolutions that have come to light, from Mulmur and Orangeville, attach several conditions, most of which should not present any problems. However, an exception is Mulmur’s contention that existing landfill sites “will receive waste from only the host municipality.”

Clearly, the concern is that wastes from the municipalities that now lack landfills (principally Orangeville and Shelburne) would fill the existing dumps long before the county would have in place the proposed ‘zero waste’ processing system at its 200-acre site in East Luther Grand Valley.

As much as we might sympathize with such concerns, the obvious fact is that all that garbage is currently going to Michigan, and some alternative must be made available, if only for the short term.

Perhaps the most realistic approach would be for the county to agree that the wastes would be restricted in the local landfills to the greatest extent possible, while establishing a temporary landfill operation at the county site as a “lesser of evils.”