Modes of governing Canadian waste management: a case study of Metro Vancouver’s energy-from-waste controversy

ABSTRACT

Managing municipal solid waste is a pressing environmental and political concern for Canadian municipalities who bear the primary responsibility for waste management (WM). In 2015, Metro Vancouver’s (MV’s) plans to expand their capacity to expand their WM capacity with energy-from-waste technology was abandoned, despite shrinking landfill space and persistent public opposition to new landfills. Using Bulkeley et al.’s [(2005). Governing municipal waste: towards a new analytical framework. Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning, 7(1), 1–23. doi:10.1080/15239080500251700] ‘modes of governing framework’, we analyse MV’s failed attempt to expand their energy-from-waste capacity to better understand the challenges associated with governing WM in Canada. We argue that a history of downloading responsibility for WM to municipalities, regional districts, and industry has fragmented WM governance, posing a challenge for developing new waste infrastructure. We find that this localization of responsibility is incompatible with contemporary WM challenges. The scalar mismatch between waste’s material impacts and the scale at which waste is managed has resulted in co-dependence and conflict between putatively independent municipalities, regional districts, and private companies. This inhibits higher-level WM coordination while the autonomy of individual municipalities is simultaneously undermined.

KEYWORDS:

• Municipal solid waste
• governance
• waste management
• regional politics
• incineration

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Scott Cameron Lougheed http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5080-4985

Notes on contributors

Scott Cameron Lougheed is a PhD Candidate in the School of Environmental Studies at Queen's University at Kingston. His research concerns issues of risk and governance as they relate to waste management; food production, safety, and waste; and food choice.

Jessica Metuzals is a Master's Student in the School of Environmental Studies at Queen's University. Her graduate research focuses on community experiences of historical and contemporary uranium development proposals in Nunavut., Previous research has examined waste management policies and practices in Canada, specifically Nunavut, Ontario, and British Columbia.

Myra J Hird is Professor and Queen's National Scholar in the School of Environmental Studies at Queen's University (http://www.myrahird.com). Hird is Director of the genera Research Group (gRG), an interdisciplinary network of collaborating natural, social, and humanities scholars, and Director of Canada's Waste Flow, an interdisciplinary research project focused on waste (http://www.wasteflow.ca). Hird has published 9 books and over 70 articles and book chapters on topics relating to science studies.

Notes

1 SWMP were later renamed as ISWRMP, reflecting the evolution of the meaning of waste as a potential resource.

2 A whitepaper in Canada is a government document published and available to the public that outlines a set of policy challenges or priorities.

3 If the disposed-of waste stream contains a specific ratio of these materials, surcharges, which vary in accordance with specific material and their quantity, are applied. Examples of these banned materials include: cardboard, recyclable paper, wires and cables, batteries, fluorescent lights and tires.

4 Resource recovery from landfills primarily refers to methane gas capture, and to a much lesser extent landfill mining for minerals, metals, and so on (Hird, 2017).

5 The EA certificate was denied on the basis that MV ISWRMP did not demonstrate a need for expanded landfill capacity (Dalal, 2011).

Additional information

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [insight grant number 435-201300560] in conducting this research.