KENILWORTH – A landfill site is many things, but county councillor Campbell Cork said “Riverstown is not the old dump.”
In his inaugural report to Wellington North council on April 8, Cork said, “the first thing I learned at the committee meeting was that you don’t call it ‘going to the dump any more’.”
He added “you barely call it going to the landfill site … they call it a waste facility.”
Cork said anyone who had been to the Riverstown site lately will realize it is not the old dump.
Cork said that up until recently, across Wellington County there were seven transfer stations that accepted all kinds of things, from drywall to mattresses.
The materials just went into a bin and were transported to Riverstown – the only existing landfill site in Wellington County.
“Recently we’ve adopted a program where transfer stations will be separating materials out for recycling,” said Cork.
He added another issue facing solid waste services is organics.
“This comes at a time when one-in-six families in Wellington County don’t know where their next meal is coming from – meanwhile the rest of us are throwing away about one-third of the food we produce and most of it goes to the landfill site. Most of it could be rescued.”
Cork said organic waste is a factor in creating leachates, which potentially carry hazardous materials off site.
He stated the site was originally owned by Wellington North.
“It was the announcement that leachate was racing towards Bell’s Creek which scared the living bejesus out of us all and made us happy to hand the landfill site off to the county for free.”
While Cork said it was a nice gift to the county, “It might be one of the most valuable assets of the county at this moment.”
He said “today it is impossible to consider locating another landfill site … it is just not going to happen.
“Today, one third of Ontario’s waste is shipped to New York or Michigan.”
Cork said Riverstown has a larger capacity than most – about 25 years. He said in the next 10 years, the county will be spending $6.5 million at Riverstown, closing phase one and opening phase two – an additional 100 acres of the property.
As a point of interest,Cork stated downstream monitoring downstream on Bell’s Creek indicates no leachate has left the Riverstown site.
Cork said officials have found that people are taking in their yellow county bags but not taking advantage of the Blue Box program.
“What we are trying to do is change some of those habits,” he said.
He added consideration is being given to a green bin program for compost.
Cork said the county is also in the process of re-tendering the pickup of garbage and recyclables.
Consideration is also being given to picking up rural garbage on both sides of the road.
Cork added, “The bottom line is not a case of whether we want or need a service, but whether we can afford it.”
