In the fall-out of their deliberations around the City’s new Solid Waste Master Plan, which took place in June, Ottawa’s City Council is now considering how to deal with waste residuals - that is, leftover waste that cannot be recycled or composted. Currently, the City deals with these residuals through the Trail Road Waste Facility landfill. This is not a perfect solution, as residuals left in landfills produce emissions, potentially toxic chemicals, and other pollution into the surrounding environment. In addition, landfills have finite space - which is why the City is considering another option for disposing of its residuals. Council has asked City staff to explore incineration, which they are currently conducting a feasibility study for. Incineration is a bad idea for Ottawa to pursue for several reasons—with the negative economic, health, and environmental impacts among them. One aspect worth special consideration is the environmental equity implications of incineration, and how incineration may unfairly impact certain marginalized peoples in our community over others.
Image 1. Ottawa’s Trail Road landfill (CBC, Michel Aspirot)
For background, incineration is the combustion of garbage, usually the burning of municipal solid waste. Incineration produces greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change, and toxins that pollute our air, water, and soil. These pollutants harm the health of humans, wildlife, and the environment. In addition to these detrimental impacts, incineration is also the most expensive method of municipal waste disposal. While incineration advocates may point to incineration’s capacity to produce electricity, this form of electricity generation is the second most expensive to generate - with nuclear power taking the lead - extremely inefficient, and produces more greenhouse gases than coal.
Image 2. Durham-York Energy Centre (Barrie Today)
On top of these adverse side effects, where Ottawa would build this incineration facility raises huge social justice concerns. Simply put, living near an incineration site is hazardous to human health and wellbeing. Facilities are characterized by large smoke stacks emitting toxic plumes of steam into the air that are fueled by truckloads of waste hauled to the waste sites every day. It’s no surprise that incinerators (like landfills) are often not located in affluent areas or neighbourhoods with high tourism. They tend to be sited at city outskirts, near communities with the least access to critical social services. 8 out of 10 incinerators in the United States are located in low-income communities or communities of colour (note that we cite US statistics because Canadian statistics on incineration are underfunded and under researched, according to a CHRC report). David Boyd, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment, explains that “the burden of contamination falls disproportionately on … communities already enduring poverty, discrimination and systemic marginalization”.
Image 3. Clarington Incinerator, Ontario (Alex Ballingall, Toronto Star).
This pattern of polluting services being located near underserved communities is rooted in systemic injustices and colonialism, with income and employment serving as key social determinants of health and wellbeing. In other words, the higher the income and the better your job, the greater access to housing, food, and other critical services you are likely to have. Having capital and job security also means you have the resources to move, for example, when issues emerge that you perceive to threaten your wellbeing. One study conducted by the US National Research Council from 2000 suggested that people with the financial means to move away from areas while increasing industrial activities may do so, while the less economically privileged are forced to remain. This can alter the sociodemographic characteristics of the industrial community over time, resulting in a large concentration of marginalized community members - who are more likely to be racialized and low-income. These communities have less capital and resources to resist ongoing injustices against them, like the planning of a new waste incineration site or other potentially harmful activities.
According to Ingrid Waldron, founder of Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities and Community Health (ENRICH), “It's not only about health and stress. It's also about lack of power, that you've placed certain industries in certain communities without consulting with them. You've taken away their power, you've taken away their voice, and you've placed it in communities that are not only racialized but that are also poor.”
Canada has a long history of such injustices against marginalized communities and inadequate remedial action, especially against Black and Indigenous communities. A prime example is in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, where the predominantly Black community was poisoned by the Moran Road Landfill from the 1940s until its closure in 2016. Even now, the landfill and its toxic health problems remain, with no adequate remediation plan in place to deal with the waste. This waste - which included industrial, medical, and household waste - was regularly set on fire to make room for more waste. Higher rates of cancer, liver disease, and kidney disorders have been observed in the community adjacent to the landfill, with a “sickening” smell plaguing the air and rat infestations driving down the quality of life for community members.
Figure 1. Map of Shelburne residents who have died of cancer (NSA, 2017).
Unfortunately, Shelburne is not the only marginalized community to suffer environmental racism in Nova Scotia. Mapping by the Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities and Community Health (ENRICH) Project illustrates how dozens of waste disposal sites are situated in close proximity to predominantly Black and Indigenous communities in Nova Scotia. A 2023 report from the Canadian Human Rights Commission illustrates more examples, drivers, and impacts of environmental racism in Canada. These acts of environmental racism have left communities with generational trauma. The report explains that physical trauma of environmental racism occurs through increased rates of chronic illness, and blood poisoning that passes to future generations. Psychological impacts, for example a trauma response to hearing a siren because in their community growing up, that sound was a warning of a chemical spill. Experts in this report conclude that “Canada has normalized a lesser standard of living for socioeconomically disadvantaged and racialized communities” (p.1).
Figure 2. Map showing proximity of waste facilities and African Nova Scotian and Mi’kmaq communities. (Carol Linnitt, The Narwhal). For more detail, see the interactive map from ENRICH.
Another aspect of Environmental Racism occurs in the decision making process for waste facilities. Marginalized communities are often excluded from decision making and left with the consequences of this inadequate form of waste management. Additionally, Ottawans are no strangers to “NIMBYism” (“not in my backyard”) when it comes to city development projects. Typically, wealthier communities have the resources to become strong advocates to oppose waste facilities and maintain their neighbourhood’s health. Local waste management is prone to NIMBYism, leaving resource low communities often unable to adequately oppose municipal decisions.
Using incineration as a waste management “solution” is not going to help Ottawa or the planet tackle the core issue: consumption. Ottawa councillor Jeff Leiper highlighted this in a short address to City Council in 2023: “We consume too many things we don’t need, and it’s destroying the planet”. Incineration is a short-term fix that has ramifications far beyond natural ecosystems. Equitable environmental action is about developing solutions to major environmental problems - from emissions reductions to waste management and more - in a manner that does not unfairly disadvantage those already disproportionately harmed by injustices in our economy and society. Environmental racism is nowhere near over in our country, but the recently passed federal Bill C-226, the Environmental Racism Act, is the first step to acknowledging and addressing environmental racism at the national level.
The City has been pushing for incineration as a waste “solution” for more than 15 years, after 12 Councillors voted against it in 2009 - possibly in light of the so-called Plasco Fiasco. The risks of incineration to health and ecosystems are clearer now than they were back then, so why are we considering pursuing a similar problematic project? Now is not the time for the City of Ottawa to make a long-term decision that would directly oppose the intentions of the national Environmental Racism Act.
Let decision makers know that we want responsible waste management for the sake of our environment and health! Contact your councillor and the mayor with your thoughts on the City’s plan for solid waste management and incineration. To learn more check out this blog post we wrote with Waste Watch Ottawa detailing our suggestions for improved waste management.
Still have questions on incineration? Check out our Q&A below.
Q: Won’t incineration yield economic benefits?
A: Incineration is the most expensive method of waste disposal (Wirsig, 2024; Moon, 2021 Repair, recycling, and remanufacturing services provide significantly more employment than incineration (Ribeiro-Broomhead, & Tangri, 2021). Stopping waste from the source and diverting waste is the most economically sound option.
Q: But incineration produces sellable electricity?
A: Electricity generation via incineration is inefficient and the second most expensive method of electricity generation after nuclear power (Wirsig, 2024; Moon, 2021). Incinerators will not produce enough electricity to sell to mitigate operation costs.
Q: If incineration is bad, why don’t we just expand landfills?
A: Landfills create pollution, drain our wallets, and still contribute to environmental racism in a pattern similar to other waste management systems (Wirsig, 2024). Both landfills and incineration are harmful and the City needs to focus its efforts and funding reducing waste production through reuse initiatives, compost promotion, producer responsibility and zero waste education instead.
