Environment Committee on Dec. 3rd, 2014

[Bob Mills]

Third world countries have hundreds of people who hang out at landfills and pick garbage. They are obviously picking out what's of value.

I visited a cardboard plant in Nova Scotia. They used to get $50 per tonne for cardboard. Today, the price is running up to $250, $300, $500 for a tonne of cardboard. The prices are going up for these commodities, and of course, most of it's being shipped to Asia, China, Korea, and various other places. Things are increasing in value.

I don't know about the guy driving around in cul-de-sacs picking it up, whether that's the answer. I think more it's an answer of opening those bags and having the technology to sort it there. Then what you can't use, what is not economical to recycle, you do something else with it, but don't put it in a landfill. The problem with the incinerator is that into the air, into the landfill, you end up producing a more toxic situation.

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

The final question has to do with the $15 per tonne in Alberta for GHG emissions. I was kind of surprised that this kind of fund could be used for, if you will, dealing with waste products or dealing with garbage and recycling. I didn't realize there was access to that kind of fund for that. I thought it was supposed to be directed to reducing GHG emissions for the oil and gas industry.

[Bob Mills]

New technologies reduce the GHGs into the.... Because a landfill is releasing all kinds—

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

One of the emissions of GHGs—

[Bob Mills]

—of greenhouse gases. That's where it is justified. Yes, there are a number of projects, from composting of manure to things like Plasco, where money has been offered through that carbon fund.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Mr. Mills, I want to take 20 seconds to ask a question.

You indicated that the slag has fewer contaminants left in it than a Coke bottle. Does that apply to a full Coke bottle as well?

[Bob Mills]

Hey, I don't want to get into that; I don't need a lawsuit. That's a medical issue and we'd need to ask a doctor.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

We'll move now to Monsieur Choquette.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Mills, for being with us today.

I agree with you that garbage is not a waste but, rather, a resource we should be reusing. We need to find a way to repurpose that garbage. The cradle-to-cradle principle dictates that waste be reused. That is the best approach.

I wasn't sure why we were studying this issue, and I will admit I am still wondering about that. Nevertheless, I listened when witnesses said that Canada had the worst scorecard when it came to municipal waste management, which made me think there was probably a good reason for doing this study. I hope we'll come out of it with some useful recommendations.

A number of witnesses have stressed the importance of establishing a carbon tax based on the polluter pays principle. And you've talked about that as well today. As you know, Alberta and British Columbia have a carbon tax. Quebec has a cap and trade system in place with California. Ontario is even considering adopting that system.

Regardless of the approach taken, where do you stand on the importance of establishing a carbon tax based on the polluter pays principle?

[Bob Mills]

I think that's the point I would really want to make, that there is a cost but there's a huge benefit from recycling. Obviously, some of these new technologies at least initially need some help, need some funding in various ways to make them succeed. I used to be extremely opposed to a carbon tax but I do believe we have to put a value on the carbon that we're putting into our environment. Climate change is real. It's happening at an accelerated rate, and we as developed countries need to deal with that. We need to take into account the value or the cost of that carbon going into the atmosphere, so somehow we have to find a way to fund projects, new technologies.

In Alberta, as I've mentioned, that's what's happening with that $15. I think that's a great use of that $15, to help these new technologies. I'd like to see the whole world do it. The biggest problem I guess with the carbon, the whole cap and trade thing, has been in Europe where they issued way too many certificates and way too many loopholes, and as a result, the price of carbon has dropped to almost nothing. When I was sitting in your chair there, I would have been predicting that the price of carbon would now be $80. Instead it's like $2. The reason for that is largely the mismanagement from Brussels of that whole carbon tax thing.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Thank you.

You are right. The system clearly has to be managed properly and seriously. I'm glad to hear you talk about the importance of taking action against climate change.

In fact, the committee will be debating some motions I provided notice of last week. One of them pertains to the official opposition's absence from the delegation Canada is sending to the United Nations Climate Change Conference taking place in Lima. That is truly disgraceful, in my view. The other motion has to do with the fact that the minister is unfortunately not going to appear before the committee to share Canada's position during the upcoming negotiations in Lima.

I have very little time left, but I'd like you to repeat your main recommendations for the federal government. I want to make sure the Library of Parliament analysts fully understood.

[Bob Mills]

Again, I was so pleased to be asked to come before the committee on this subject, particularly because I've tried to get it raised so many times. I think it's really important. I think it's something that every province and every municipality in every province has a problem with. You can't keep doing it the way you've been doing it. You have to change that.

The fact is there are solutions out there, and we can sit here and say, “Okay, here are some of the answers.” I've gone through all of the testimony that came before, and there are some great recommendations there. If those are put down in point form, I would hope that the federal government would take that seriously and provide that vision—I love that word “vision”—leadership on 21st century technologies instead of the way grandpa and great-grandpa did it. That's not good enough anymore.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you, Mr. Choquette.

We'll move now to Mr. Toet for five minutes.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Mills, it has been very interesting to hear your perspectives on this after, as you say, many years of looking at this issue.

You mentioned that we must sort at the front end. I think it's key. Mr. McKay talked about this a little bit. Where do you see that front end when it comes to sorting occurring? We've heard from different witnesses. Some will see that front end as being at the household before it gets to the curb. Some will see that sorting at different points. Where would you define that front end from your perspective?

[Bob Mills]

I think if everybody sorted at the curb, that would be wonderful. The problem is that a lot of people don't, and I challenge you again to go and open 25 garbage bags. Obviously, it has to be at where the collection point is. In other words, I think the plant that it's taken to is where your major sorting is going to occur. The more you can do at the curb, in the house, the better; that will help a lot, but I don't believe that you can count on that for 100% of your sorting. It would be nice to think that everybody cared and that everybody would sort diligently, but unfortunately I'm now convinced that it won't happen.

I would say keep what we've got, but let's move on to technology to sort at the front end at the plant.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Okay. So you would be very supportive of technology such as Emterra's. In your introductory remarks you actually mentioned the optical sorters that can sort different plastics. They don't even have to be labelled as to which type of plastic they are. That becomes a redundant issue.

[Bob Mills]

Right. We didn't used to have that.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

I know. That's new technology.

One reason I bring that up is that ultimately, to a large degree for us to go forward on this issue, municipalities have to embrace the change, because they're the ones that have to deliver the service. They also have to embrace the different ways of delivering the service.

I bring this up because you cited the example of Red Deer and their 17-year commitment to their landfill, and how they wanted to divert only 10% of their waste. We haven't called witnesses here from some jurisdictions that I had also talked about. We do all our sorting at the curb. We have the household do it. We don't want to have to invest in optical readers in order to do the sorting work. You talked about the psychological support being almost more important than the financial support to some degree in these municipalities.

Given your experience, can you give us a recommendation, an idea or a thought about how we can bring that forward to the municipalities so that they will actually want to embrace changes in technology rather than, as you say, do it the same way their father and grandfather did it, so that they will want to look at the new ways of doing these things?

[Bob Mills]

I tried this little experiment in the Netherlands, because they were looking for new technology. They can't landfill efficiently anymore, because they're short of land and they have a high water table, etc. They had a 50-year contract for an incinerator and they weren't sure how they could get out of that. In order to not landfill, they're taking out very contaminated slag and hauling it to one of the eastern European countries and landfilling it there rather than in their own country. To me that is really offloading your time bomb to somebody else.

We need to do a sales job. I think the FCM is a good place to start. You have all of the mayors there. That's a place where this vision can be put together. We must not landfill anymore. We must come up with some of these new technologies. I think with that kind of encouragement from the federal government and hopefully down to the provincial government, municipalities will embrace it. They want to, but they don't have the ability and the finances to actually do the Death Valley thing. There's where the feds come in. They have vision. I think this committee can do that, can provide that vision. Then, of course, you have to convince the minister and the Prime Minister that this is the way to go, because everybody wants a solution to their garbage problem.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

I find that very interesting. There's a little town about 60 miles east of Winnipeg, the very small municipality of Whitemouth, which has probably one of the most state-of-the-art waste disposal sites where they do a lot of this front-end sorting. This is a very small municipality with not a whole lot of resources. Actually to some degree it's a municipality that's lost a lot of its young people who used to be in the peat business. The peat business has been going downhill for them, and yet they found the resources to do this on their own and they're actually doing it very efficiently. Again, I think we need to look at examples of that. How is a small municipality like this, which is not getting provincial money and not getting federal money, actually being a beacon of hope out there for municipalities that really want to embrace this technology and do it in an efficient manner?

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Could we have a short answer to that if it's possible?

[Bob Mills]

That's where the sales come in. That's where we take examples. We take early adapters of other forms of handling garbage. We have an early adapter there, and there will be only a handful of municipalities in that category. Most of them are waiting to see what happens. They're not going to be early adapters. Take those early adapters and use them as poster municipalities and say, “Look what they have done. Here's what you should be doing”. That's what I mean by vision and encouragement. That is what hasn't existed out of Ottawa or out of a number of the provinces.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you.

[Bob Mills]

Remember my letters back from the provinces and the municipalities? I got a lot of letters.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Okay, and all that extra paper contributed to our pollution as well.