Tag Archives: Incinerator

The lesser of two Evils is still evil.

Recently a great change happened in Canada! We got rid of the worst prime minister in Canadian history! This dramatic change gave people fresh hope.

Unfortunately, because the last was one so bad, many people were in Stockholm Syndrome-like fashion, glassy-eyed and giddy. Any criticism from those who did not vote for Trudeau was attacked with derision and vitriol.

Their argument was: “The last one was so bad, you should be happy”!

Really? Is this sound logic? No, of course not.

 

Part of being human is a natural primordial need to feel good. This relatively healthy need drives us to seek food, shelter and love. Activists are also humans with those same needs.

We want to feel like we are actually accomplishing something and thus ‘getting somewhere/ ‘moving forward’.

This and other needs like being seen, being respected appreciated and valued, affects our thinking words and actions.

A classic example is the use, or rather, the overuse of the word “Sustainable”. It is almost never being used correctly. Worse yet… ‘Ten years after the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, most of the global environmental challenges had clearly not been adequately addressed. In several ways, these challenges had grown.

The Brundtland Commission officially dissolved in December 1987 after releasing Our Common Future, also known as the Brundtland Report, in October 1987, a document which coined, and defined the meaning of the term “Sustainable Development”.’

Virtually no “development” is “sustainable” if we apply the true scientific definition verses the snake oil definition. In fact what we are truly talking about is being Less Unsustainable!

 

So now Canada has a prime minister that is not as ‘bad’. He is, shall we say, the ‘lesser of evils’?

In simple terms, burning nonrenewable resources, that in fact were, largely, harvested and mined “unsustainably”, transported how many times unsustainably; then thrown ‘away’ and picked up in trucks made of steel, aluminum, copper, rare-earth metals, rubber and plastic, to be transported unsustainably, using unsustainable fuels driven on unsustainable roads to an unsustainable facility made of concrete, steel and numerous other unsustainable products.

Then to be ‘incinerated’. Is this not madness?

Is this not the epitome of feel-good nonsense?

That burning versus burying is the “lesser of evils”? And, if it is, is it not still evil?

 

Dear colleagues. I beseech you.

We must not allow our need to feel good as individuals or as a group, to cloud our judgement in our thoughts, words and actions.

Anything less than a redesign of our system is unacceptable.

Anything less reminds me of open coffin funerals where the dead person is surrounded by nice shiny satin, wearing new clothes, and their face is slathered with makeup so they look healthy and peaceful.

Burning as an ‘alternative’ is greenwashing of the highest order.

Its the cremation of evidence, of our materialistic, consumeristic, cancerous, parasitic lifestyle.

Back-patting anyone or any organization that furthers the smoke and mirrors illusion of green washing is a disservice to all of us who are working for real change, an ultimate insult to Gaia and every living thing.

Please, let us resolve today, that as individuals, and in our requisite groups, that we will stand for no less than honest, scientifically based change that is far less unsustainable!

The Zero Waste International Alliance reacts to bogus Zero Waste claims

As a direct response to the emergence of bogus “Zero Waste” organisations around the world the Zero Waste International Alliance (ZWIA), which has for over a decade proposed and promoted the elimination of all waste in human endeavors, has contacted its friends in the Industrial Ecology, anti-incineration and circular economy world, to ask for help in flushing out the impostors that are trying to steal the Zero Waste term in order to promote incineration and other unsustainable practices under the cloak of the term “Zero Waste to Landfill” —mostly for undisguised commercial reasons.

“There can be no form of deliberate resource destruction in a zero waste world” –Ric Anthony, Chair of the Zero Waste International alliance.

“ZWIA has taken great care to define Zero Waste in a way that it actually means “no waste” because we humans have been made to realise, far too late really, that waste has been something our species has created by mistake and we are jeopardizing our survival chances on this earth by being so careless.” he added.

ZWIA asserts that Zero Waste to Landfill is a bogus claim that falsely implies an element of environmentalism to disguise blatant commercialism. ZWIA challenges organisations not to use the term Zero Waste unless it means the same as in the published ZWIA definition.

Metro Vancouver Regional District BC Canada’s “Zero Waste Committee”, is a prime example promoting unsustainable waste to energy (WtE) projects without reserve. Also, Metro Vancouver regional district were instrumental in the creation and financing of the National Zero Waste Council, which is an organization operating without a definition of ZERO WASTE and with some of its members who promote and support waste to energy/incineration.

If the waste industry’s response to no landfill –as legislated in the European Union – is incineration disguised as Waste to Energy (WTE) then it needs to be exposed as bogus –it’s at best a pretty unimaginative alternative.

“Well —-if we can’t bury rubbish let’s burn it instead” – is pretty lame you have to admit.

Whilst municipalities the world over have begun to realize that waste was a mistake and that we have been burying and burning valuable resources, the waste industry profiteers are running scared  by the prospect of no materials to trade as recycling and composting rates climb higher and higher.

They are desperate to stop a reduction in their traded commodity—-waste, and “Zero Waste to landfill” is yet another desperate attempt at turning back the environmental (and now economic) tide.

Thankfully San Francisco at 80% and South Australia at 80% and municipalities in Europe reaching past 75% when they are properly managed, indicate the true way forward to a sustainable economy.

A circular economy that creates endeavour and jobs from the value of these resources rather than maintaining business as usual for those with yacht palaces parked in Monaco and Martinique.

ENDS

ZWIA.

See www.zwia.org for the only peer reviewed definition of Zero Waste.

Canadian references:

  1. Recover Energy From Waste 
  2. INTEGRATED ENERGY SYSTEMS – SWEDEN’S SMART ENERGY COMMUNITIESTOUR 5.1