Toronto | Traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinaabeg, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat – Environmental and community groups have sent a letter to Peel Region Council members urging them to pass a motion at today’s council meeting against the proposed expansion of the privately-owned waste incinerator in Brampton. Council is in receipt of a report from the region’s Medical Officer of Health and Commissioner of Health Services that raises concerns about the impacts of an expanded incinerator on the health of people living in the vicinity of the facility, located at 7656 Bramalea Road.
“Peel Public Health points out that this area of Peel already has significant air pollution and people living there are more likely to suffer from certain health conditions, including diabetes and COPD,” points out Steve Papagiannis of the Brampton Environmental Alliance. “We want Council to join us in telling the provincial government, who is being asked to approve the project, to say no. We should be directing our efforts to eliminate waste, not grow our capacity to burn it.”
The public health report points out that the community living around the incinerator is more likely to be racialized and lower-income than the overall population of Peel Region. There is a high probability that area residents are unaware of both the proposal itself and the potential impacts on their health.
“We feel that Emerald’s environmental screening report falls short in many areas related to current air pollution and testing from the existing facility, let alone what we could expect from their projections if the incinerator undergoes a massive expansion,” adds Steve Kirby of the Peel chapter of the Sierra Club. “We’re glad to see that Peel Public Health is calling for more frequent and ongoing monitoring of pollutants in soil, something the company has not done. But monitoring alone won’t protect the community. Pollution from burning waste produces some of the most toxic “forever chemicals” known to science and it’s unfair to expose this already burdened community to even more. The expansion must be denied.”
Emerald EFW, the company that owns the incinerator, is seeking to expand the facility by nearly five times, to handle 900,000 tonnes of waste per year. The provincial government has not made a decision on the proposal. The groups have asked the provincial government to require a full environmental assessment of the project to allow for more public input and independent scientific expertise, as well as an examination of alternatives to a massive increase in waste burning.
“Incineration is a terrible answer to Ontario’s waste problem,” says Karen Wirsig, Senior Program Manager for Plastics at Environmental Defence. “We’re very pleased to see Peel Public Health recommend exploring the benefits of other solutions that serve to reduce the generation of waste in the first place. Waste reduction, reuse, repair, composting and recycling are all much better ways of dealing with the problem.”
ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENCE (environmentaldefence.ca): Environmental Defence is a leading Canadian environmental advocacy organization that works with government, industry and individuals to defend clean water, a safe climate and healthy communities.
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For more information or to request an interview, please contact:
Mira Merchant, Environmental Defence, media@environmentaldefence.ca
