Managing solid waste

Allan Gardiner
Ontario Federation of Agriculture Executive Committee

As residents of Ontario struggle to maintain green spaces for environmental and recreational purposes, farmers have growing concerns with the disappearance of productive farmland - land that is being designated for landfill purposes.
Our government should be leading the way with research that will give citizens improved options for dealing with their waste. Aggressive research to find alternatives to landfills is becoming increasingly important.
While 60 per cent diversion and intensive re-use, recycle and reduction is commendable, 21st century technology must be looked at seriously. Government must support pilot projects that offer solutions to solid waste problems.
Landfills have historically provided a simple way of getting rid of solid waste materials - putting a wide range of goods and substances into a hole in the ground and topping it off with a layer of soil has long been society’s approach to getting rid of such waste.
This way of managing solid waste materials periodically backfires on society. Underground water sources can be subjected to serious pollutants when landfills leak, and history shows that’s a distinct possibility every time another load of waste is dumped into a landfill area.
Our government is developing source water protection regulations, and attention must be directed at what leachate leaks from landfill sites can do to the water table.
It’s time for our governments to spend more money on research that will result in more waste diversion from landfills rather than new designs for more landfills. Society needs to view landfills as less of an option in the future - if they truly are concerned with protecting the environment and preserving green spaces.
For years farmers have been applying the latest technologies on their farms to preserve and protect the environment - much of this work done at their own expense. Over time, governments have shown increasing interest in these projects and are now providing funds to help farmers as they work for a safer way of doing things on their farms.
Farmland is an environmental treasure chest that farmers are protecting for now and for future generations. We don’t want that work to be nullified.
Now its time our governments get more serious about protecting the environment and our scarce farmland resources from society’s solid waste materials. Farmers have increased their production efficiency to compensate for the loss of farmland to land filling and urban growth.
If society wants to ensure access to domestically-produced food, it needs to understand that increased production efficiency has its limits. The time is nearing when farmland lost to landfills will mean a need for more imported foods - if the land is used for urban growth and landfilling of waste materials resulting from that growth, the ability of our country to feed its people will diminish.
OFA has a long history of working with governments to solve all forms of problems. We look forward to seeing government get more serious about the problems posed by solid waste management.