The following letter has been sent to Simcoe county councillors
Stantec, Simcoe County’s waste consultants, will receive about 1/4 of a million dollars of public money for preparing a Waste Minimization Plan (WMP), which concludes that County residents can only reach a meagre 76% diversion rate by 2029. These are the same “waste experts” who held public meetings to discuss strategies to solve our waste problems, while providing disposable products at the meetings! It is clear they are not focused on waste reduction.
County residents are already diverting over 50%. Stantec figures that it will take almost 20 years to divert another 26%. T’his is laughable! Honestly, it might be funny if public funds werent involved, and if people hadn’t spent over 20 years trying to stop a proposed landfill over a pristine aquifer, and if garbage wasn’t such a serious financial and environmental disaster.
There is no excuse for Stantec’s lack of attention to waste reduction, except that by maintaining a constant flow of garbage they continue to have a job.
Most residents are taking steps to reduce their waste by participating in all available diversion programs, and by avoiding wasteful products and packaging in the first place. And, like many people across Ontario, County residents are anxiously awaiting changes by the provincial government to further waste reduction by enforcing product stewardship programs, which will move Ontario into a Zero Waste future. Companies are already making changes to eliminate waste, and many municipalities are already diverting over 70% of waste and striving for 90-95% diversion.
So how can Stantec conclude that it will take Simcoe County residents almost 20 more years to divert another 26%? Maybe they aren’t the “waste experts” they claim to be?
Stantec should step into the 21st Century and accept that Zero Waste is the desired goal, because it makes financial and environmental sense, and it is what the people paying the bill want the goal to be.
Yours truly,
Kelly Clune
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It is simply shocking that Simcoe County Council throws money around in this way.
There appears to be nothing in this report that half a dozen College students could not have put together for a case of beer and a good sized pizza.
And, since the conclusion of the report is that Stantec and other contractors should be retained to make money out of the problem, it might have been expected that there would have been no charge at all.
When did this start?
When did County Council get the idea that their job is to pour money into the pockets of contractors?
They are currently spending millions making sure that the County Offices are big enough for the staff. They might have saved those millions by simply using the surplus office space all around the county and cutting down on the palatial suites assigned to the senior people.
And then there are the people, such as the Communications/Propaganda Unit, we’d be better off without.
How much have budgets increased in Midhurst in the past three, five, seven years?
How much have levels of remuneration risen?
How much has the legal budget gone up?
Have expenses risen? If so how much?
This is our money: a great deal of good can be done with it. It doesn’t have to be shared out between lawyers, contractors, bureaucrats and their friends. It could be used to make this county a better, cleaner, happier, fairer place in which to bring up children and make our livings.
Great letter Kelly.
Did you also send this letter to clerk Glen Knox so it will become part of the council agenda?
Kelly Clune, a great letter.
i would very much like to see your letter in a local news paper so more people can become aware of the fraud that is being perpetrated .
Kelly, your letter is excellent and I would like to see it copied to all the local papers including Bradford West Gwillimbury. You have put into words elequently the fustration we all felt when we heard their goal was another 26% over 20 years.I will gladly provide the editor’s email address for BWG Times. They need a wake up call there. White and Roughley are Geurgis supporters and I would like them to hear more than just from me. I don’t see them as being interested at all in environmental concerns.
Excellent letter Kelly! Thank you!
Yes, agreed – all the papers should see it and residents should see how their tax dollars are being wasted!
Also, when will there be a waste management audit?