Environment committee  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 oppose

Environment committee  We'll get into that after.

Environment committee  Well, I would like to think that people treat garbage the way people should treat garbage, in other words, sort it and so on. The sad part, what brought me back to reality on that whole thing, is when I opened garbage bags. If you want an experience, go to a landfill and open 25

Environment committee  It's amazing. It's a fairly smelly job, but you'd really be interested in what you find. I mean, we even found a chopped up bicycle in a garbage bag. There's a huge amount of stuff that isn't recycled properly. The technology is there. Rip open the bag, sort out the metal, sort o

Environment committee  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

Environment committee  I would say yes, it's there, and I would say there are a few leaders. There are a great many people who think they know the technology, but they haven't gone through the steps. Until you get a plant that's up and running, and as I said, that can take 10 years or more, you really

Environment committee  Remember, first of all, you have to take out the heavy metals. You have to take out anything that's a contaminant. The high temperature will destroy the dioxins and furans, the bad stuff, but then you end up with.... I just brought a piece of my favourite slag. The poor people wh

Environment committee  When you talk to municipalities, it's very fascinating. I've talked to many. They come up with the strangest reasons for not doing this. I have turned that into a presentation I call the fear of change. Why are bureaucrats afraid of it? Why are politicians afraid of it? Why is th

Environment committee  Hi, John.

Environment committee  Hey, I'm still fighting garbage so, you know, it's 40 years later.

Environment committee  That's exactly right, yes. You don't want to turn into slag or something.

Environment committee  At first it's going to be more expensive; I don't think there's any question about that. But you have to think about the whole package: what you're doing to your air, what you're doing to your groundwater, what you're doing to future generations, and the liability question. I thi

Environment committee  It's heavy metals, and dioxins and furans, and so on that you can't detect, that you can't get out of that burning stream, that incineration stream. Above all, no matter what we do and whatever method we end up with, we must sort at the front end. Wherever it's financially feasib

Environment committee  First of all, to start at the front end, is the sorting process. That needs new technologies. There are all kinds of inventors out there. We're pretty good at that. I think we need encouragement and funding to help that out. Then I think there's the process itself. We need to re

Environment committee  If you were to look at U.S. examples—I mentioned the one in Florida and I've been to the ones in New York and Michigan—they're landfilling. They claim they have liners that don't leak, but no engineer will guarantee that. I would say for the most part it's either incinerating or