The Council of the Township of Whitewater Region received a report for information purposes as it relates to a Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) with the Township of McNab/Braeside for collected kitchen waste generated within the Township of Whitewater Region to be sent to a recycling facility located in the Township of McNab/Braeside.
Steve Hodson said the project involved a process devised in Chester, Nova Scotia that converted organic waste by Sustane Technologies Inc. .
“They’re cooking it really. They’re creating a biomass fuel from food items, diapers, things of organic materials.” he said.
He said that NcNab/Braeside was “looking for support” to start this program in Whitewater Region.
“There are a lot of unknowns.” Hodson said. “The premise of it is quite interesting. But they would need so much funding from municipalities and possibly higher levels of government.”
He said that the wording of the memorandum would be changing in the new year, due to meetings with Lannister County and McNab/Braeside.”
“I have so many questions, so I’m not in favour of this.” Mayor Moore said.
“This is an opportunity to say that we don’t have enough information.” CAO Trembley said. “The proposal speaks to kitchen waste but we don’t have an organics program. We can say “we need a whole lot more information before we do anything with this’”
“I’d rather do a letter of support rather than sign any MOU.” Councillor Nicholson said. “I’d prefer if the LEG group look into this. To me, this is a great idea, but the process is not the right way. We’ve just introduced leaf waste, we’re not anywhere near kitchen waste.”
“I do just hope that all of council will look at the background.” Reeve Regier said. “If you look into it and see the process of this facility, it’s very interesting. They did a presentation at County Council and I definitely think that someday this will be the way of the future. It’s quite interesting to see the total process.”
Cleroux said that the LEG organization was meeting with ‘environmental counterparts’ and could meet with McNab/Braeside.
“It’s not ‘kitchen waste’, it’s your garbage.” Hodson added. “It’s not source-separated, this facility separates everything. It takes the plastics, the metal out.” Hodson added. “Just the wording of it is not correct. It’s an interesting process but there are way too many unknowns here.”
The motion was carried.
