Lafarge clears air by trashing proposal

It seems to me that burning waste in a cement plant is a great idea. The temp is high enough for complete combustion of toxics, it avoids landfills and it recovers energy. Some would say that it reduces the incentive to recycle or minimize waste but that's a specious argument because the incentive still exists. I suppose the neighbours would not like the trucks but there should be an acceptable solution to this.

Thank you for your thoughts. There was evidence supported by our experts, who are leading researchers in their fields, that the emissions of toxic air pollutants would increase as a result of burning waste materials, particular materials like plastics, municipal waste and tires. Furthermore, Lafarge would not guarantee that their emissions would not increase as a result of burning these 'wastes' and they already had compliance problems (See Ministry of the Environment non compliance reports).

In addtion, many rubber recyclers in Ontario were complaining at the time that they could not get access to used tires because cement kilns elsewhere (outside of Ontario) were buying them all up for fuel. Ontario does not have an approved tire recycling program that provides an incentive to recyclers, although one is now in the works. If Lafarge had been able to go ahead with burning used tires this would have worsened the situation for rubber recyclers in Ontario.

The obvious answer is that if an environmental assessment had been conducted at the outset of this proposal, as the local community requested, their concerns would have been properly assessed. But the Ontario government excused Lafarge from an environmental assessment giving the local concerned citizen no other choice but to challenge the permits that were issued.

I live just a couple miles from the cement factory in Picton, Ontario which is west of the Lafarge plant in Bath.
There are nights when a north wind blows smoke to town and I would be very concerned if this meant we were breathing carcinogens.
The victory by citizens and Ecojustice against a huge corporation in Bath is very exciting, one that seemed hopeless at times over the past couple of years.
I used to live just a few miles from the used tire storage sites in St. Chrysostome and Franklin, Quebec that posed a great fire hazard and risk of contaminating some of Canada's best agricultural soils.
As I understand, that 2-decade long saga has ended happily too as tire dumps have been liquidated as rubber recycling has come online.

Cancer-causing fumes are a concern, however I applaud the attempt to become more energy efficient.