Environment Committee on Oct. 6th, 2014

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Listening to you, sir, I just wanted to crawl into some hidey-hole and pack it in.

Now, what brought you here was the response of the executive vice-president who, when answering Mr. Trottier's question about what's going up in the air, said that it was basically carbon dioxide and some water vapour. You thought that was absolutely not true. Then you listed at least 18 lethal chemicals that are going up in the air through this process.

I don't know enough about the Port Hope facility to know whether we're talking about apples and oranges here. When the people from Plasco came here, they talked about taking the product and using that gasification product to create energy. In fact, I just went to the Industry Canada website, which says, “Plasma gasification is a non-incineration thermal process which uses extremely high temperatures in an oxygen free/starved environment to completely decompose input waste material into very simple molecules.”

I appreciate that I'm putting you on the spot a little bit here, but on the other hand, I'm a little confused. Obviously the people who were answering Mr. Trottier's question are trying to get a plant built, and maybe they're just saying what they're saying. I don't really know. But Plasco is actually an operating facility out here on the fringes of Ottawa and it is supported by the Government of Canada. It was supported by the previous Government of Canada as well.

The way I listened to your testimony is that possibly Plasco and other incineration processes that take the product and turn it into a gas are in fact built on a false process, and that in fact there is still product that's going out, whether's it's micro mini-molecules or something that the system simply can't filter. There's still stuff getting out. I'd be interested in your thoughts.

[Dr. Stan R. Blecher]

This is exactly correct, Mr. McKay. It's distressing to me that there are incinerators that are condoned and supported by governments and government agencies. This is precisely the problem. Governments have allowed themselves to be convinced by the smooth talk of the promoters of these poison-producing sites and plants that they are safe, but they are not.

Gasification and plasma are different technologies. This is also something that this company, Entech-REM, and other companies have attempted to confuse the public about. The plant that the Entech-REM company hopes to and wants to put up in Port Hope, which I do not want them to put up, is a gasification plant. Gasification is even more dangerous than plasma or other kinds of incineration because it functions at a slightly lower temperature, and at lower temperatures even more poisons escape. At higher temperatures some of the poisons do get burned and destroyed and can only reform later. But there's no question at all that the plant you're referring to, and every other plant of a similar nature anywhere in this country or anywhere else, is emitting highly toxic, highly poisonous, cancer-producing poisons.

Now, we don't worry about them, we don't concern ourselves about them, because we're constantly reassured that, oh, they're very small amounts being leaked out, and they're within so-called government limits. But the phrase “within government limits” is a very catchy phrase that can very easily confuse people. I'll remind you that cigarettes are also within government limits. Cigarettes are legal, and yet we all know that cigarettes produce cancer. It's a very similar situation here. Governments have not been able to totally ban cigarettes, and governments have not been able to totally ban incinerators—yet—but they should.

The fact that something is within legal limits, and within government guidelines, and within whatever other phrase one wants to use does not mean it's safe. There is no safe limit to any of these poisons. They all are producing cancer. That's why we have a cancer epidemic worldwide.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

These phrases come from the government's website:

The extreme heat and lack of oxygen results in pyrolysis of the input waste material (pyrolysis being the decomposition of matter in the absence of oxygen). Plasma gasification operates as close to pure pyrolysis as possible, as opposed to starved air pyrolysis which is common with incineration type solutions. The by-products are normally a combustible gas and an inert slag.

I take it that what you're saying is that this is nonsense.

[Dr. Stan R. Blecher]

It's a little bit confusing. I don't know if they're deliberately or not deliberately confusing you with those words. Pyrolysis takes place in no oxygen, and gasification in a little bit of oxygen; that's a slight difference. The gasification also takes place at a lower temperature than pyrolysis. Pyrolysis takes place at a higher temperature.

Neither of them is any good. They both put out these poisons. The companies attempt to confuse the public by fancy terminology and big words. The bottom line is that these poisons come out of the gas stack, they get into the air, and they get into the food chain through this process of bioaccumulation that I spoke of previously. They get into our air and our water and our food, and they cause cancer. I really would love to see a way of stopping this.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

We'll move on to Mr. Bevington for five minutes, please.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Thank you.

Thanks to the witness.

You know, most things get burned in this world. What do you feel about burning wood in your home?

[Dr. Stan R. Blecher]

Wood also produces some of these poisons and some nanoparticles, but it produces such a minute amount that it's absolutely incomparable. It absolutely is not....

Again, the companies love to say this, that you're also producing nanoparticles when you light a candle.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Let's go on to diesel in vehicles. Isn't that a recognized carcinogen? Let's say you have a bus with kids standing by the exhaust fumes off a diesel truck, a diesel school bus. What do you think of that?

[Dr. Stan R. Blecher]

I have three answers to that. First, they don't produce the furans and dioxins that are only produced in incineration temperatures. Second, they don't produce anywhere near the same quantity of poisons and cancer-producing molecules that incinerators do. And third, there is what I've called the “lesser evil” principle. I've put some words about that into the handout I gave the clerk to pass on to you at a later stage.

The lesser evil principle is—

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

I don't know whether I'll have time with my question to go into all that.

The next question I would have, if you accept that there are a number of different things that cause these pollutants, is that some of them are okay because they're less dangerous but are perhaps more prevalent. There's that aspect as well. You might have a smokestack, but if it's scrubbed and some of this is taken out, there's less per unit of air than there is for people in a situation on a street with a lot of pollution going by them from vehicles.

Can you say emphatically that volume is also an issue with pollution?

[Dr. Stan R. Blecher]

Absolutely. I can emphatically say that no matter how well the so-called scrubbers in the incinerator stack are functioning, they're incomparably more polluting than the diesel motor of a car or a bus.

I just want to say one quick word about the lesser-evil principle, that we must have cars until we can totally convert to electric vehicles or some other non-polluting cars. I hate the fact that cars pollute, but they pollute far less than incinerators do. But we must have cars; we do not have to have incinerators. We have an alternative. It's the same in the arena of radioactivity. I don't like radioactivity, but sometimes we have to use it in the medical profession.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Are you familiar with Borlänge, Sweden?

Years ago I visited the incinerator in Borlänge, Sweden, which produces heat for the communities. They buy garbage from all the communities around them, because it's a valued resource. They very carefully select and sort the garbage in the summertime, bale it, and prepare it for burning in the fall. They monitor the smokestack to the degree that they can determine whenever there is any kind of pollutant in their stream. They have a very elaborate system of computer-controlled garbage collection that allows them to then determine where the garbage comes from in the community. They can go back to the source and eliminate any of the pollutants that may enter the garbage process.

That's been going on for many years in Borlänge. It's been very well set up and organized. Do you see that having the same degree of risk that you would see from a plant in Port Hope?

[Dr. Stan R. Blecher]

Sir, respectfully, I know of that unit and it also puts out poisons. It also puts out these cancer-producing poisons. The fact that the promoters of it in Sweden claim that they are able to clean it out has been refuted by scientists and scientific studies. I do not support any type of incinerator for any place in the world. This is not only for Port Hope but for anywhere in the world.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you.

We're going to have to—

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Okay, so no matter how clean it is, you say that this other principle that you had doesn't apply.

[Dr. Stan R. Blecher]

No, sir. I didn't say that at all.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Okay.

We're not going to allow a response to that.

Mr. Woodworth.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I doubt that I can take the whole five minutes, but I've been surprised before.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I have a couple of questions, which I hope will be straightforward.

I regret, Dr. Blecher, that I did not bring with me my copy of your previous letter. I wonder if it was accompanied by that environmental screening report the company prepared and you referred to. If it wasn't, would you be able to provide a copy of that to our clerk so he can distribute it?

[Dr. Stan R. Blecher]

I included a link in that from which you can find that environmental screening report.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

That will do the trick.

Thank you.

Secondly, I noticed in your material that you have written to the Ontario Minister of the Environment regarding your concerns. I wondered if you had received a reply from the Minister of the Environment for Ontario and whether we might have a copy of that if you have.

[Dr. Stan R. Blecher]

No, sir. I have not.

The process is the following. When a company applies to put something up like this incinerator, it goes through two different parallel processes. They have to—

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I'm going to stop you there. I don't mean to be rude—