You Asked Us
Below you will find a list of questions that have been posed by members of the public in their comments on the proposed Mixed Waste Processing Facility. Other project related questions can be found in the
Frequently Asked Questions section.
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A number of questions were raised that can only be answered at the detailed design phase. Information will be provided when available. Here are the questions:
- Will this be a 24-hour operation?
- Will compost be available to the local community?
- How much greenhouse gas will be emitted by this plant during both the building process and when in full operation?
- How many new jobs will this create in the Toronto area and Green Lane facility?
What will this facility do, why not build it in Toronto?
The residential mixed waste processing facility will recover recyclables and organics from residential mixed waste. Organics will generate Compost-Like-Output and anything leftover will be sent to landfill. The process reduces the amount of material going to landfill. The facility is to be developed and operated at approximately 150,000 tonnes per year and is projected to result in 75,000 tonnes per year of diversion.
If Anaerobic Digestion is used, biogas, which is rich in methane, can be used to generate energy, either through a generator, or through cleaning the gas and then, either compressing it for use in vehicles/facility operating equipment, or injecting it into the gas distribution network. The methane would likely offset the mixed waste processing facility’s own energy requirements.
Of the 12 potential sites considered, nine were located within the City of Toronto. Two of the Toronto sites were screened out because they had previously been selected as the locations for Toronto’s new source separate organics facilities, which will process Green Bin materials. During the site screening process all sites except for the land adjacent to Green Lane Landfill were excluded, primarily because they had insufficient property to accommodate the size of the required residential mixed waste processing facility.
Detailed site screening information can be accessed in the study under
Why are 3 – 12 hectares of land required?
A range of 3 -12 hectares of land is the estimated size requirement for a Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT) facility to service the City of Toronto. One of the most significant impacts on the size of an MBT facility is the extent and type of composting and curing that takes place on-site as well as the equipment that is employed to separate and process materials. The 3 – 12 hectares required includes the footprint of the building and ancillary infrastructure, such as roads, weigh scales and curing areas.&
Section 5.3, 5.4 and 5.5 of Work Package 1 & 2 Report provide details on how facility size land requirements were calculated as well as providing property details for each of the sites evaluated.
What is compost-like-output (CLO) and where will it be used?
The Mixed Waste Processing Study recommends mechanical biological treatment (MBT), with either aerobic composting or anaerobic digestion as the preferred technology. Compost is one of the outputs from the MBT process.
Due to the variability of a mixed waste feedstock, the processing of mixed waste typically produces a lower quality compost than when source-separated organics are composted. The MBT process can produce a range of organic materials for potential CLO applications, such as amendment for landscaping applications or sod farms or for remediation of mine sites. The final uses will be dependent upon product quality.
The Ontario Ministry of the Environment has recently posted the proposed Compost Guideline and regulatory amendments on the Environmental Bill of Rights registry. Composting facilities and use of compost in Ontario and the CLO describe in the study would fall under the new categories A or B, which refer to compost quality. Further details of the MOE proposal can be found on the EBR website.
Explain how noise, odour and traffic will be addressed.
Mitigation measures will be part of the final design to lessen potential impacts. Noisy or odourous operations, for example, could be mitigated by enclosing the noisiest and most odours aspects of the process.
How many trucks will be arriving and departing at the processing facility?
Approximately 15 trucks per day will be arriving and departing from the processing facility. However, it should be noted that beginning in January 2011 all of the City of Toronto residential waste will be disposed of at the Green Lane Landfill. The only difference is that once a mixed waste processing facility is built, some of the trucks will turn towards the processing facility and other will go directly to the landfill.
What is the source of waste streams to be processed at the facility?
City of Toronto residential mixed waste with some biosolids will be processed at the facility.
The planning study states that nuisance factors were ranked as being of greatest importance as opposed to the “environmental” factors. As a local resident I find this very alarming. Please explain.
When the Health Impact Assessment (HIA) screening study was conducted it used the Toronto Public Health HIA framework which identifies environmental factors as one category among five determinants of health to be analysed. The HIA for the planning study found that within this category, odour, noise, built environment, groundwater quality, air quality and surface water quality were the environmental factors of greatest importance in terms of the potential for negative impacts from the different waste processing options. Air and water quality factors reflect environmental contamination issues which can have a direct impact on health. The remaining factors are described as “nuisance” factors (e.g. odour, noise, built environment) which have a more indirect, although some would say no less important, impact on health.
In the ranking exercise, the so-called “nuisance” factors were ranked higher not because the other environmental factors are less important, but because these factors help distinguish the pros and cons of the different waste processing approaches better. For example, air quality was found to be of equal concern for the different waste processing approaches and therefore doesn’t help distinguish which approach is better from a health perspective. On the other hand, odour emissions, which can degrade local air quality, were seen to be least problematic with the Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT) plus Anaerobic Digestion technology option compared to both the MBT technology or landfilling alone with no processing of waste.
Figure 6: Environmental Option Comparison Summary, Work Package 3 Report
Are health related to animals and the food production for human consumption included in the Health Impact Assessment Screening.
While the focus of the HIA is on human health, we recognize that impacts can go beyond people. Considering health of livestock and crops through impacts on the environment was included in the HIA screening. See Table 2 - Potential Health Impacts and their Potential Source - Work Package 3 for details on the assumptions included. For example, uptake of contaminants by agricultural crops and ingestion of the crops by people was considered in assessing potential impacts on vegetation. Impacts from waste processing on groundwater used for livestock or for crops were also included in the HIA assumptions. Air quality impacts were considered for the surrounding community, which would include people, animals, livestock, plants, crops, etc.
Why doesn’t the City incinerate waste?
Energy from waste, including incineration technologies are not considered waste diversion as part of the Ministry of the Environment’s policies. In order for the City of Toronto to reach its diversion objective it must consider non-disposal technologies.
