Clarification: Our group, that is desperately trying to curtail the proposed site of a new Waste Management Facility just north of Moose Jaw, is totally opposed to any prime farmland being used for a landfill. 1 mile --- 40 miles from Moose Jaw, the distance doesn’t matter. Our position is that no fertile, food producing land should be considered for us as a garbage disposal site.
Hang On – The Future Is Coming
Whoa Moose Jaw City Council! Take a moment and deeply consider what you are proposing. Waste management facilities, as we know them, are rapidly moving towards becoming artifacts of a past time. They are remnants of a society that knew no better. But we do know better. We know the health risks and environmental destruction that comes with landfills. How can our city, knowingly, place a garbage facility immediately beside the residents of Moose Jaw and surrounding R.M.? Why endanger the heath of Moose Jaw’s population who live down-wind from this proposed site? Why pursue a method of garbage disposal that would decimate prime farmland, leaving in its wake, a useless, contaminated wasteland. A waste land right beside the city in which you live?
There is no excuse, nor is there a need to build a new landfill site. Technology has arrived, at this exact point in time, that is capable of not only reducing waster but potentially eliminating it by up to 90%. Not only is the “waste” aspect done away with, but the matter produced can be used again and again.
The County of Wetaskiwin is a forward-thinking level of government in Alberta that has entered into an exciting project with Sustane Technologies that will do just that. Sustane Technologies is a Halifax based company that uses today's technologies to reduce waste and ultimately reuse the resulting material to produce carbon free diesel, renewable natural gas, fertilizer that has received Canadian Food Inspection Agency approval and the list goes on.
Hang On – Moose Jaw City Council
Take a close-up look at the future. A landfill to facilitate garbage for the next 100 years? Why? Take a step back and re-think what is being proposed. How can the hard-earned tax dollar of your citizens be used in a more progressive manner? By using the technologies and processes that are literally at our fingertips!
The present landfill site has several years left in its lifespan, so let’s continue to utilize that site giving technology time to be refined and adapted. Technology is moving towards the total elimination of landfills. We need to give the future time to arrive.
Please remember this:
Landfills aren’t long-term solutions.
Landfills are long-term problems.
Wilda Soper for Friends of the R.M. #161
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
