The Keele Valley landfill site will run out of space by 2002. Toronto has less than four years to plan for alternatives. Garbage is the result of poorly designed manufacturing systems. Incineration is expensive, creates pollution and still requires landfill space to bury the ash.
Incineration depends on burning materials like wood fibre which are among the easiest to recycle.
The Green Party of Ontario suggests that the provincial government develop a strategy and timetable to reduce the waste stream in Ontario to zero. Organic matter is comprised of water and nutrients which should be returned to the soil, rather than landfilled. Manufacturers should be encouraged, through green taxes, to design products to facilitate repair, recovery, recycling and composting. Industry, which follows the path of least tax resistance, would quickly retool for green technologies and processes if it were profitable. To provide a level playing field, manufacturers outside of Ontario wishing to market products here should be required to design their products and packaging so that landfilling is not necessary.