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Letter: ‘There’s nothing good about incineration’ | Paterson Times

Letter: ‘There’s nothing good about incineration’

letter-to-editor-hq

It’s nice to read that the Mayor and members of Council haven’t been bamboozled by incinerator salesman’s promising a quick fix to waste.  There’s nothing good about incineration – it ends up costing taxpayers to contaminate their own air, land and water. It also destroys local jobs that could be created to recover wasted materials for reuse, recycling or composting.

Incineration simply doesn’t make financial or environmental sense.

All levels of government need to require producers to develop products that can be easily reused, recycled, or composted.  Producers also need to pay their own way to collect and reprocess those products.  Solutions are possible for all products.

Consider disposable diapers: a multi-billion dollar industry being subsidized 100% by taxpayers to finance the disposal costs.  This industry needs to be required to collect and process this waste at its own expense.  Disposable diapers have been a growing problem for decades.  Now, not only infants, but all ages are wrapped in this chemically-laced plastic waste.  We should have seen this coming.  Governments need to require this industry to collect disposable diapers separately from hospitals, daycare and senior centres, and in municipal curbside programs – to ensure that sewage is properly processed and fibers are reclaimed for recycling.

Jurisdictions around the world are adopting Zero Waste strategies and are discovering many benefits to their community.   It takes leaders to move us into a sustainable future.  Thanks for working to stop incineration in your community.  We’ll all breathe easier because of it.

Kelly Clune
Ontario, Canada

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