The Wilderness Committee is disappointed by the decision of Environment Minister Terry Lake to approve Metro Vancouver's waste management plan, but the real fight will start when a location is chosen for a waste incineration facility.

"It's no big surprise that Terry Lake is rubber stamping this plan, since he also supported the very unpopular hazardous waste incinerator proposal in his own riding of Kamloops - a proposal which, fortunately, his constituents were able to stop," said Ben West, Healthy Communities Campaigner with the Wilderness Committee. "Decisions like this one today would seem to suggest that Minister Lake sees his job as helping big companies get around dealing with environmental concerns, rather than actually protecting our environment," said West.

With Minister Lake's approval, the Metro Vancouver board will now put out a request for proposals for a facility to incinerate garbage, either in the Metro Vancouver region or, potentially, somewhere out of region. When the controversial waste management plan was brought to the Metro Vancouver board last year, directors voted down both in region and out of region garbage burning facility proposals. After more than five hours of debate the board passed the waste management plan with the support of Surrey Mayor Diane Watts, who moved the amendment leaving all possible technologies and locations on the table. She had originally opposed the in region option due to concerns related to the Fraser Valley air shed.

The City of Vancouver and a number of directors from across the region opposed mass burn incineration, regardless of location.

"The real fight will begin when they pick a location and try to build one of these pollution-spewing garbage-burning monsters," said West. "Wherever they try to do this we will be there to make sure people know the truth about what is being proposed in their backyard," said West.

The Wilderness Committee has been working with the Zero Waste BC network to show how composting, recycling, extended producer responsibility and waste reduction could solve our waste problems, create more jobs and help the environment.

Contact:

Ben West, Wilderness Committee, Healthy Communities Campaigner, 604-710-5340

For more information visit ZeroWasteBC.org