KAGAWONG—A Billings councillor will be bringing forward a motion requesting council members support the township beginning discussions with all neighbouring municipalities on Manitoulin Island, looking at ways of getting rid of garbage from Manitoulin in a better, more environmentally conscious way.
“I would like to initiate a discussion with other municipalities on the Island in regards to the garbage issue,” stated Councillor Vince Grogan at a meeting last week. “Many municipalities are having to haul their garbage off-Island. I spent over 35 years in the trucking industry and know what damage can be done by diesel fuel on the environment. And the Island only has one way vehicles can get off the Island for six months of the year. If there was ever an accident on Highway 6, we would be cooked.”
“I would like to see an open house discussion held with other municipalities for everyone to bring new ideas to the table to see if we can find common ground on this issue. We are all concerned with waste and by putting our heads together maybe we can find ways to handle the waste in a better and more environmentally conscious way,” said Councillor Grogan. He said Billings is one of the only communities on the Island that currently has availability to a dumpsite, but still has concerns because some day this will end. And he said like other municipalities there is an influx of seasonal residents on the Island in the summer who also use the waste services. But there is not enough of a population for the entire year to have some of the recycling programs involving huge amounts of waste to be deployed.
“And having transfer stations set up, to have waste transported off the Island is not the best environmentally responsible answer either,” said Councillor Grogan. He said with proper composting and glass recycling between 40-42 percent of waste can be diverted from dumpsites.
“By all working together we might have enough waste on the Island to look at having processing plants even smaller scale, on the Island, for things like corrugated products,” said Councillor Grogan. “Glass can be processed and there are recycling programs for plastic and batteries. The technology for all this type of stuff is out there. With our population base in Billings we don’t have the population or amount of waste to sustain any type of processing plant, but if we can get and work together, with a population of about 12,000 people maybe we can do something that will benefit everyone. Even if we reduce the number of trucks that are carrying waste off the Island would be a positive.”
Councillor Grogan stressed, “but I can’t do anything without first bringing forward a motion to council, and have their support, to discuss the waste issue with our neighbouring communities on the Island.”
“I would just like to see a discussion on this issue with all municipalities around us on the island to discuss issues and ideas,” continued Councillor Grogan. “As long as we are unified maybe we can find better ways to deal with waste.”
