It's now looking even less likely that a garbage incinerator will be coming to Delta.
Metro Vancouver recently announced that due to uncertainty in future waste volumes and continued reduction in residual waste, the regional district has discontinued its efforts to identify a new waste-to-energy facility.
In a news release, Metro Vancouver chair Greg Moore said the regional district remains committed to waste-to-energy as the most sustainable technology, but given strides in recycling and waste reduction, the timeline for requiring additional capacity to deal with garbage has been pushed forward by several years. Metro Vancouver board director and Richmond councillor Harold Steves quickly took to social media to describe the decision as a victory, saying another incinerator is not needed because the region can recycle most of its waste.
The next step should be a region-wide ban on plastic bags and a campaign against the use of plastic water bottles, he said.
Having a 12-hectare (30-acre) property within its industrial lands designated as "energy" for a potential waste-to-energy plant, the Tsawwassen First Nation appeared to be one of the contending locations until two years ago. Aquilini Renewable Energy, owned by Vancouver Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini, is part of the privately held Aquilini Investment Group that had partnered with the TFN on a proposal to build a plant. That deal appeared to have fallen through by late 2013 when the TFN was not named on a shortlist of communities made public by Metro, a list that had Aquilini seeking an incinerator elsewhere.
A separate proposal in Delta that made the shortlist was from Lehigh Cement, which identified two potential locations for an incinerator in the Tilbury area.
When the initial shortlist that didn't include the TFN was announced, CEO Tom McCarthy told the Optimist, "TFN remains interested in Metro Vancouver's wasteto-energy process, but we have not yet made any final decision on our participation in the process."
