Metro Vancouver recycles about 55 per cent of its waste, lagging well behind the city of San Francisco's 75 per cent recycling rate.
The disparity leaves some critics wondering if the money used to build and operate waste-to-energy facilities like the Burnaby incinerator could be better used by following San Francisco's lead.
"We're just throwing away stuff that we absolutely shouldn't be," said Douw Steyn, Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of British Columbia.
Right now, roughly 45 per cent of Metro Vancouver waste ends up in landfills and garbage incinerators. Metro Vancouver's Draft Integrated Solid Waste and Resource Management Plan says the goal is to recycle 70 per cent of waste by 2015.
The plan proposes spending 42 per cent more on recycling and 39 per cent less on disposal in order to reach the goal.
Delta Mayor and chair of the Metro Vancouver Board, Lois Jackson, says the first priority is reducing waste, but a 100 per cent diversion rate is a target far in the future. The reality is that Metro Vancouver needs to deal with whatever isn't recycled.
"Even if we get to our goal of 70 per cent diversion, recycling, we still have over a million tonnes a year," Jackson told CTV News.
Last year, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom signed a law requiring all residences and businesses to recycle and compost. Everyone in the city must have three separate colour-coded bins for waste: blue for recycling, green for compost and black for trash.
The city has also hired people to educate the public in the hopes of reaching an even more ambitious goal—zero waste by 2020.
"We can make dramatic reductions in the amount of garbage we generate and end up in the position where I'm convinced we would not have to incinerate," said Steyn.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Mi-Jung Lee
