On the surface the establishment of a county-wide composting program seems like a positive step by Dufferin County Council to take control of the county's waste stream but in my opinion it's a bandaid solution to a complex problem.

After years of arguing and political posturing about who should control and pay for waste management their solution is only for the short term. Instead of pursuing a proposal that would utilize the site of Dufferin's previously approved landfill to build a gasification facility they have chosen to use it for dumping compostable material.

The composting initiative would cost approximately a million dollars a year to run after the county has paid for government approvals to use a landfill for composting purposes, build a concrete pad to dump the organic material on and pay for the containers for every residence in the county. All that expense to remove approximately 38 percent of the waste that is generated by the average Canadian household according to the Ministry of the Environment. A composting program will only extend the life of the existing landfills in those municipalities that are fortunate enough to have one and reduce the haulage fees for the municipalities that have to export their waste.

It does nothing to address the remaining waste or what the county will face when the four operating landfills have reached their capacity.

The dependency of the majority of Dufferin's residents to have their waste trucked to a Michigan landfill is not being taken seriously enough by the councillors of the municipalities that still have space in their landfill sites. Michigan State legislators have not only employed every legal avenue to achieve their ultimate goal of banning foreign trash from being imported into their state but the U.S. Senate passed a budget plan on Friday March 17, 2006 that would impose a $45 million fee on Canadian trash.

The purpose of the fee would be to pay for the inspection of every truckload of trash that crosses the border. State authorities contend that random inspections have found medical waste, illegal drugs, counterfeit currency and even radioactive material in the trucks. The inspector general from the U.S. Homeland Security Department said, "We need to devise a way to effectively inspect these trash shipments and if there is no way to inspect them adequately, we simply should not allow them into this country." The additional cost of these inspections will inevitably be passed along to the individual taxpayer of the municipality that has to export their waste to Michigan.

County Councillors had been debating the feasibility of building a gasification facility on the site of the county's landfill in East Luther that would process all of Dufferin's industrial and household waste including old tires, sludge, wood and septage to produce syngas and biomethanol. The process would require no incineration, emit no emissions or pollution and produce no residue or end waste. The remaining ash at the end of the gasification process could be used as a component in building materials. Warden Lennox has been quoted as saying that a gasification facility is too expensive for the County of Dufferin but I think that putting off a permanent solution for our waste management will be more costly in the long run.

I'm in full agreement with your staff reporter Lana Fleming that if the members of the county council don't take a more proactive approach to waste management then things are not going to get better!

L. Rankin Orangeville