Shut down the Metro Vancouver Incinerator

The Burnaby incinerator, located in an urban environment and near neighbourhoods and farms, is a major source of pollution. Touted as waste to energy, it wastes more energy than it recovers.  Burning solid waste, 20% of the material going in comes out as toxic ash and the remaining 80% is released into the air. Emissions include dioxins, furans, heavy metals like arsenic, mercury and lead as well as nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxides, and many more types that can cause cancer, breathing problems and disrupt endocrine systems. These are harmful to human and environmental health and some can accumulate on agricultural land. It is one of the top 25 greenhouse gas emitters in the province. Very expensive to run, it prevents far better solutions like zero waste actions of reducing, reusing, repairing, sharing, composting and recycling from being implemented. As Metro Vancouver  is developing its new solid waste management plan that they will then ask the Ministry to approve, NOW is the time to push back and ask for the incinerator to be shut down.