Boom to Bust for Energy from Waste in Canada? : IN DEPTH: A Path for Waste to Energy in Canada

Seemingly booming just a few years ago, the Canadian energy from waste industry has seemingly taken a beating in the past year. With projects and proposals put on ice, one regional authority says there is a role for energy from waste, even as it abandons current proposals for a new facility, as David Appleyard reports.

Last December, Metro Vancouver announced that it was to halt its current waste to energy procurement process. The decision signals another blow for the waste to energy sector in Canada, which even a year ago appeared to be booming.

As recently as 2013, the industry had reported a doubling in size over five years and an April 2014 poll Commissioned by the Canadian Plastics Industry Association found some two thirds of Canadians had a favourable perception of waste to energy technologies.

But, according to John Foden, executive director of the Canadian Energy-from-Waste Coalition, of more than a dozen proposed waste to energy developments at some stage of review, approval, development or construction, at least a quarter have been put on ice or abandoned in the last year.

Explaining its decision, Metro Vancouver said the move had come due to uncertainty around future waste volumes and continued reduction in residual waste.

Though the development of new waste to energy capacity is part of Metro Vancouver’s Integrated Solid Waste and Resource Management Plan, which was provincially approved in 2010, Greg Moore, chair of Metro Vancouver, explains: “Given our collective achievement in recycling and waste reduction, the timeline for requiring additional capacity has been pushed forward by several years, enabling us to scale-up over time, based on a growing population and predictable waste volumes”.

A partnership of 21 municipalities, one Electoral Area, and one Treaty First Nation, Metro Vancouver delivers regional utility services in the southwest of Canada. Its core provisions are drinking water and wastewater treatment, as well as solid waste management, which collectively represent the majority of both operating and capital budgets and are financed through utility fees.

Despite cancelling the planned programme, Moore emphasises: “We’re not abandoning waste to energy, we’re just stopping this process and are going to revaluate where we are and then come forward with a new strategy in the future. That’s expected in a year”.

Nevertheless, Moore is emphatic, Metro Vancouver’s waste management policies have achieved startling results: “The reason we abandoned the second waste to energy facility is because we’re seeing excellent results in the amount of recycling or diversion rates that we’re getting.”

Metro Vancouver recycled 60% of the overall waste produced in 2013. “As a region now I think we’re at 62% diversion in all of the different sectors,” says Moore.

Though this is still shy of the stated 2015 goal of 70% recycling - to be followed by 80% by 2020 - residual waste volumes are apparently falling.

The Integrated Solid Waste and Resource Management Plan included proposals for a waste to energy plant of up to 500,000 tonnes a year, but as Moore explains: “When we started the procurement process for the second waste energy facility, two years ago, we were predicting that we needed about a 380,000 tonne-a-year facility.” However, according to the latest evaluations this figure is now around 225,000 – 250,000 tonnes per annum.

Potentially reflecting this change is a reduction in this year’s solid waste management budget. With a total budget of C$669.4 million (US$475 million), solid waste accounts for some 14% of Metro Vancouver budget expenditure for 2016. This year though, the Solid Waste Services operating budget will decrease by C$2.4 million (US$1.7 million) for a total operating budget of $90.8 million. This is 2.5% less than 2015’s $93.2 million programme for solid waste.

Of the total, the Solid Waste Services capital budget is C$17.2 million (US$12 million).

“We wanted to stop and step back because with that amount of residual decreasing, we didn’t want to overbuild a facility. If we keep down this path of reducing the amount of garbage we’re creating, then we might not need to build a facility or will we start to stabilise the amount of residual that we need,” says Moore.

Since developing a solid waste and resource management plan some five years’ ago, Metro Vancouver has announced a number of measures designed to reduce waste and boost recycling rates.

Moore: “Really, it’s local governments that are taking the lead and driving the agenda on waste management.”

He says: “Two major things we’ve done. One, we’ve started a National Zero Waste Council in Canada that’s made up of local governments, private sectors, non-profits all coming together.

“We’re working together with industry to look at how we can either effect change through social behaviour or through regulatory change maybe on the national level to change the packaging, so we are not receiving as much garbage in the first place,”

“The second thing is that we continue to do is pretty aggressive behaviour through marketing campaigns, social media and just community engagement.”

For example, in a recent statement, Metro Vancouver noted that recycling rates for food waste and clean wood had increased significantly following the introduction of a ban on those materials in land fill waste, which became effective on 1 January, 2015.

Following a six-month introductory and educational period, cash fines for those flouting the limits for such materials came into effect. Loads of waste with over 25% organic waste, and over 10% clean wood mixed in with regular waste are subject to penalties.

Metro Vancouver said in a statement that in the first quarter of 2015, food waste recycling rates were 50% higher than the first quarter of 2014, and clean wood recycling rates were 30% higher for the same period. Initial enforcement focused on large generators of food waste like supermarkets, major restaurants and hotels.

Some 99% of loads received at Metro Vancouver's regional disposal facilities were complying with the organics disposal ban before the enforcement began.

According to Metro Vancouver, it is expected that by January 2016, as WMW go to press, most multi-family buildings should have food waste recycling programmes in place.

"About 40% of our region's garbage contains food and garden waste, and 40% of all food that is produced is not eaten and is discarded somewhere along the farmer-processor-consumer chain. Clean wood makes up about 10% of our region's garbage," said Malcolm Brodie, Chair of Metro Vancouver's Zero Waste Committee, in a statement.

Vancouver joins other Canadian cities such Nanaimo, Ottawa, and Montreal that currently ban food waste from landfill.

Moore comments: “Because most of the garbage goes through our transfer station we can implement these [bans]. Some of them are pretty standard like plastics, cardboard and so on, and now we’re going into some of those harder to reach areas, even contaminated wood waste to make sure it doesn’t end up in landfill.”

The authority has also launched a number of public awareness campaigns. For instance, in May, 2015, Metro Vancouver launched ‘Love food Hate Waste’, a three-year campaign to reduce avoidable food waste at home and modelled on the WRAP UK initiative.

Citing another example, Moore says: “One of the flagship programmes that we’ve done for the last few years is Christmas campaigns and the theme is to ‘Create memories, not garbage’. We have stickers on the side of trucks at community centres, bus stops and we’ve had some really great success”.

In 2015, for the eighth year, Metro Vancouver was encouraging people to invest in creating memories rather than only buying gifts, and their associated packaging.

“When we look at our tonnage of tipping in January it’s been going down year after year, where in most places it goes up after Christmas,” adds Moore.

He concludes: “Over the last number of years, we’ve spent a lot of energy to reduce the amount of garbage we’re creating, [and] recycle as much as we can.”

Nonetheless, Foden argues that even if recycling rates hit target, energy from waste will remain an economically viable and environmentally positive alternative to landfill. “I think it is spurious to believe that metro Vancouver, in a year, has been able to reduce its waste generation to the point where they no longer need a waste disposal solution,” he says.

“Energy from waste is a real solution, it is essentially climate change neutral, greenhouse gas neutral, it gives people what they are looking for, a reduction in volumes of waste going to final disposal.”

He continues: “The cost issue is bogus. It generates revenue, from the tipping fee, the energy sales. The plant would pay itself off in eight to 15 years. The landfill doesn’t.”

Indeed, Metro Vancouver states that both its own internal and third-party analyses have consistently shown that waste to energy is the least expensive and most environmentally sustainable option for managing residual waste over the life of a facility.

Despite some progress on its recycling and reuse agenda, there is evidence that there are political challenges to overcome if Metro Vancouver’s ambitious solid waste strategy is to be realised.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that it was on Friday 13 February last year that Metro Vancouver announced tipping fee reductions to reduce the flow of Vancouvan waste transported outside the region to lower cost areas for disposal in landfill.

Increasingly, commercial waste haulers were bypassing regional facilities and avoiding Metro Vancouver’s disposal bans and tipping fees, which are enforced at its waste transfer stations.

In December 2014, 19,000 tonnes of waste were transported out of the region, up 60% from the corresponding 2013 figure, Metro Vancouver stated.

Commenting previously, Moore had said this is a "large and growing problem that threatens Metro Vancouver’s commitment to achieving its aggressive waste reduction and recycling goals”.

"We have adjusted our fee structure to encourage waste haulers to deliver their garbage to regional facilities. This change will ensure our disposal bans are enforced and help support a financially sustainable regional solid waste disposal system."

Its decision to reduce fees for larger, commercial, loads is perhaps reflective of Metro Vancouver’s failed attempts to pass a by-law that would effectively restrict waste originating in the region to disposal by licensed operators and at sites within the region.

Bylaw 280 was rejected by the provincial government. BC Environment Minister Mary Polak decided not to approve the measure, citing a number of “significant public-interest concerns”, including the potential for the bylaw to create a monopoly on waste management, increase illegal dumping and have a destabilising effect on private-sector collection and hauling.

In a statement, Moore said the decision would “have catastrophic consequences”.

“This decision means the commitment of our citizens to recycling and waste avoidance becomes virtually unachievable. The result will be increased costs for residents and businesses, and rather than being recycled, materials will simply be shipped to dumps where they will rot for centuries and create problems for future generations. And the impact on recycling businesses in Metro Vancouver that have invested many millions of dollars, with the expectation significant future investments, will be devastating.”

According to Metro Vancouver, Bylaw 280 was the subject of intensive lobbying by major vested interests in the waste industry, which opposed it.

Effective from April 2015, new tipping fees for large commercial vehicles were fixed at $80 per tonne. Previously, all waste received at regional facilities had been charged at a standard tipping fee of $109 per tonne.

Further updated tipping fees for 2016 - and effective from 1 January - detail these reductions with loads of nine tonnes and up fixed at $80 per tonne, nine tonne loads at $112 per tonne to a maximum of $725 and loads of up to one tonne set at $133 per tonne. Tipping fees will move to $100 per tonne for all local government single family and public works waste. This represents a decrease of approximately 8% compared to the $109 tipping fee first approved by the Board in October 2014.

The new rates were approved by the Metro Vancouver Board a year later on 30 October, 2015.

However, under the new tipping fee structure, Metro Vancouver’s solid waste function is still expected to have an operating deficit in 2015, though that deficit is expected to be about half of what was projected at the flat rate $109 tipping fee structure.

Metro Vancouver says it will continue to explore options to minimize the deficit with any remaining deficit funded through operating reserves.

The decision to reject Bylaw 280 was followed by a three month review of Metro Vancouver's solid waste management plan, launched in October 2014. In May 2015, the BC Ministry of Environment announced that it will be updating its guideline for the preparation of regional solid waste management plans to remove red tape for local governments and make the planning and approval process more efficient.

By providing clarity on ministry requirements and having a results-based focus, a new planning guideline will give local governments more autonomy and modernize the process, the provincial government says.

A final guideline is expected to be implemented in 2016, but will be based on recommendations emerging from the October 2014 review by Member of the Legislative Assembly Marvin Hunt. Among the six principles outlined by Hunt are recommendations to separate organics and recyclables out of waste wherever practical, establish and enforce disposal bans, and create a level playing field within regions for both private and public companies.

The BC Environment Ministry’s service plan targets for 2020 also include lowering the municipal solid waste disposal rate to less than 350 kg per person per year.

In a statement Polak said: “By modernising our planning guideline, we are aiming to reduce environmental impacts associated with waste disposal throughout the province, streamline the process and support our service plan goals. By incorporating Marvin Hunt's recommendations, we will be able to provide clarity for the development of necessary bylaws.”

Foden argues that for energy from waste to flourish all the various stakeholders have to come to “a better understanding and a commitment to education that accepts the fact that there is an integrated system. That energy from waste has to be part of the solution.”

One potentially influential development comes from National Zero Waste Council.

Founded by Metro Vancouver in collaboration with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities in 2013, it brings together five of Canada’s largest metropolitan regions – Metro Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax and Edmonton – with business and government leaders, academia and non-profits.

Brodie explains: “As a council it has directors from right across the country, here to Halifax and the mandate of that council is to look at waste reduction. That’s how to deal with residual waste, landfill, incinerators, how can we get the word out to reduce the product and packaging, how to promote the circular economy and how to encourage consumers to change their behaviour.”

Brodie continues: “The zero waste council is only two years old and we’re just starting to make an impact, most of the actual reduction and the better diversion rate and recycling that’s the work of the local regions. Our regional district has achieved some success in reducing the amount of our waste stream.”

In addition, the Council is lobbying for the introduction of a tax incentive to prevent food waste. Launching the campaign in October 2015, members of the Council began advocating for a federal tax incentive to encourage businesses to donate more edible food to charitable organisations.

The aim is to divert larger volumes of edible food from the waste stream – with the equivalent of 300 million meals destined for Canadian landfill every year. About 40% of this is generated by producers and suppliers, the Council states.

But, while such a measure would be anticipated to have a further impact on reducing volumes of waste that is sent for final disposal, the newly elected government of Justin Trudeau is still a relatively unknown quantity. As Brodie explains: “For the specific initiative on the tax incentive it is too early to say what kind of reaction we’ll get, but there’s been a lot of interest shown. We’ve got a new federal government and it is going to have different priorities and agenda.”

Overall though, Foden is optimistic when considering energy from waste in Canada: “We have a policy regime in place, we have jurisdictions that are amenable to the technologies that meet these very considerable international standards for operations and safety. I think that what has to be demonstrated is that these plants don’t compete with recycling. We know that they don’t.”

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