Wednesday 19 November 2014

Trash Talk Municipal Style

Yesterday Councillor Shaun Henry and I attended an information session on regional waste management and recycling. Here are the highlights.

Regional Waste Management, Transfer Stations, & Landfill Information Session
SEIMA: WDM North Battleford
November 18, 2014
·         Trying to take a holistic approach with waste and recycling
·         Want to see communities collaborating with communities
·         Risk
·         Environmental impacts
·         Health impacts
·         Long term liability
·         Bottom line
·         Landfills have requirements to follow
·         Waste is not free to dispose of
·         Landfills can run to make a profit
·         New legislation is about a cultural shift
·         Money
·         New accounting standards effective 2015 (PS 3260)
Regional Waste Management, Recycling, and Landfill Information Session. November 18, 2014

Environmental Code

·         Enforced in stages
·         Landfill and Transfer Stations are included in the 1st edition
·         Some landfill aspects will be included
·         Regulation through
·         A variety of acts EMPA
·         Municipal Refuse and Management Regulations 1986 doesn’t need financial assurance and is municipally owned
·         IEW and HSWDG about burning and hazardous goods
·         What about How?
·         MRMR is not prescriptive
·         The code can be adjusted every 6 months
·         Acceptable solution and alternative solution

Compliance Audit Program

·         4 landfills were audited this year
·         Audit vs inspection
·         Audit: systematic, independent and documented process to determine state of landfill
·         Inspection: a point of time verifying compliance with regulations
·         4 types of audit findings
·         Positive finding
·         Easily corrected
·         Non-compliance with non-immediate threat and needs correction
·         Immediate threat with immediate correction and formal compliance
·         Compliance audit model is risk based and is meant to be collaborative
·         2015 risk based audit selection includes waste and looking at high risk landfills

Landfill Design and Operations

Design

·         Protect ground and surface water
·         Modern landfills are highly engineered containment system: protect the environment
·         Permit to construct is issued to owner of site
·         4 design options: Landfill Design Best Practices, Alberta Code, SK Draft code, specifically designed for waste and site
·         450 metres from humans, 300 from water, not in a flood plain,
·         Designated areas for different types of materials
·         Environmental control systems to contain
·         Landfill gas management: gases from the waste

Operations

·         Cover and compaction only when operation is closed to the public
·         Burn small loads more often than do less frequent big burns
·         Signage needs to be clear
·         Operational plan: identify all permit requirements
·         Identify, daily, weekly, and monthly activities (part of new code)
·         Use GPS for site locations of some products
·         Permittee has weekly/monthly inspections
·         Be a good neighbour and clean up debris
·         Good plan includes: operation plan, ERP stations, parameters, and frequency

Landfills and TRansfer Stations

·         Waste burning prohibited for a long time
·         Toxics that go up will come down: toxic particulate will settle on land and urban
·         Carbon monoxide exposure
·         Toxic particulate can go down to aquifers

Landfill Closure

·         180 days’ notice of closure
·         Need a site assessment and corrective action plan
·         Subsurface, chemicals, groundwater, migration of contaminants

Soils

·         Soil guidelines on website with drop down menu and answers
·         Again, operation plans outlining intentions
·         Will WRLI be doing land farming? Treating contaminated soil?
·         Does fracking produce contaminated soil?

Groundwater Monitoring

·         Monitor impact of ground water to assess if a threat to human or environment
·         All landfills leak and they are a toxic stew
·         Monitoring depends on site assessment

Transfer Stations

·         Supervised during hours of operation
·         Similar to the operation of a landfill
·         Designated areas clearly identified
·         Ensure proper design: access to public, access to site, removal of waste
·         Collection of temporary waste is same as landfill
·         Recent findings: clean wood piles are not clean wood piles

Multi-Material Stewardship Western

·         Funding in year 3 to be based on Sask numbers rather than the launch using Manitoba numbers
·         Still working out kinks re papers and other producers

Litter and Illegal Dumping

·         TIPS is now used as a tool to catch violators

Municipality Capacity Building

·         Lots of services including waste management
·         Promote municipal cooperation and collaboration

Association of Regional Waste Management Authorities

·         Goal is for Sask to reduce waste 50%
·         Will we become a regional waste management authority?
·         To assist regions with new program design/development

SWANA

·         Advance practice of sound municipal solid waste management
·         Landfill operators in Sask do not need to be certified but looking at a recommendation to undertake training
·         Landfills are about the preservation of your airspace
·         Operators need to plan 18 months out
·         Landfills now need a Crisis Committee for emergency responses
·         How do you deal with 500 fridges at one time?

Waste Stewardship and Recycling

·         Hope to achieve: avoid, reduce, reuse, recycle, recover, dispose
·         Regulated programs include: beverage containers, used auto fluids, scrap tires, electronics, paint, ag plastics, etc

SK Waste Reduction Council

·         Recycling database: saskwastereduction.ca
·         New is: household hazardous waste is only 1%-2% but dangerous, ag plastics, expansion of electronics recycling, food waste reduction and composting ($27 billion wasted per year and households waste 50%)

Recycle SK

·         Recycling groups working together to coordinate activities

·         To grow product management programs in SK

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