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Ottawa's $450M question: To burn our trash or not to burn our trash? (www.cbc.ca)
submitted 9 months ago by veeesix@lemmy.ca to c/ottawa@lemmy.ca
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Staff at the City of Ottawa are working on a fast-tracked feasibility study for an incinerator, set to return to council by mid-2025.

"No matter what, we're going to be generating waste, and as Ottawa continues to grow we need to make sure we have a means to deal with that," said Hoover-Bienasz.

There is also no getting around emissions, she said. Landfills create their own greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide and methane.

Building an incinerator similar to the facility in Clarington would cost $450 to $500 million, according to the city's estimates, with annual operating costs of an additional $25 million.

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[-] AnotherDirtyAnglo@lemmy.ca 5 points 9 months ago

If this is anything like the technology used in Sweden, it's a net positive -- it burns at such a high temperature that the emissions are essentially just carbon.

And let's face it -- plastic recycling has been a dismal failure, and we were all duped by the plastic producers into thinking that recycling was an environmental choice. Turn those petrochemicals back into combustible material, and generate some power while diverting huge amounts of waste from landfill.

FYI, Sweden's program was so successful that they started accepting trash from neighbouring countries to keep the incinerator running.

[-] Fiivemacs@lemmy.ca 1 points 9 months ago

Ill save them some more money by using my own fireplace to burn everything then.

[-] veeesix@lemmy.ca 4 points 9 months ago

The garbage is used as fuel to produce energy, so it’s not open season for the rest of us.

[-] Cort@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

Does burning trash to create thermal energy used to heat a house count?

[-] veeesix@lemmy.ca 1 points 9 months ago

I guess so, but I suppose the only difference is how the burned byproducts are handled.

[-] CanadianCorhen@lemmy.ca 5 points 9 months ago

Not just that, a home fireplace only reaches a couple hundred degrees, and doesn't fully combust the materials, emmiting smoke and dangerous amounts of... Basically creosote.

A unit like this burns a LOT hotter, releasing less byproducts

[-] YurkshireLad@lemmy.ca 1 points 9 months ago

Didn't we already go through the process of wanting to use an incinerator years ago?

[-] veeesix@lemmy.ca 2 points 9 months ago

The city recently accelerated the study on the environmental impacts of an incinerator back in December as the landfill is set to fill (approx. 10 years) by the time an incinerator gets up and running.

this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2024
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