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This Article is part of the Up in Smoke special report
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A deep dive into garbage: Vancouver Observer series looks at Metro Vancouver's plan to burn
VO digs deep into Metro Vancouver's garbage story. A summary of twenty articles. More to come.
The Vancouver Observer goes to San Francisco to report on how the Golden Gate City manages garbage. Video produced by Linda Solomon Wood and filmed and edited by Zack Embree.
What will become of Metro Vancouver's garbage?
A plan by the Metro Vancouver regional authority would have taxpayers spending half a billion public dollars on an incinerator to solve the region’s garbage problem. But what would would that mean the City of Vancouver's plan to be the Greenest City by 2020?
In the following articles, VO digs deep into Metro Vancouver's garbage story.
Big companies and big money square off over Metro Van's $480m incineration plan
Within 2014, Metro Vancouver has to balance its regional sustainability mandate with a controversial plan to build a $480-million-dollar waste-to-energy incinerator that would burn a growing heap of future garbage. The issue is already polarizing environmentalists, the waste management industry and the business community in the region.
Metro Van and Fraser Valley Regional District butt heads over incinerator plan
The Fraser Valley Regional District has come out swinging against Metro Vancouver's incinerator plan with a scathing ad campaign, claiming that smoke from burning garbage will damage the Fraser Valley's airshed and cause health problems.
Big money for one company if Metro Van pushes incinerator plan through. Here's who'll make it.
Who stands to profit from the incinerator contract with Metro Vancouver? One of the region's wealthiest families, the Aquilinis, are among the players who may strike it big with a new incinerator deal.
- Andrea Reimer says Metro Van's incinerator plan from another era Vancouver Councillor Andrea Reimer recounts how waste-to-energy technology – innovated decades years ago – has captivated the minds of Metro Vancouver's key decision-makers, and how people with opposing views have struggle to be heard.
- As Europe shies away from burning trash, Metro Vancouver gears up for $480m waste-to-energy incinerator
Scandinavian countries that were once the champions of waste-to-energy incineration are now starting to turn their back on burning garbage and seeing the future in recycling. Denmark and Sweden have embraced recycling and are questioning the burning of what many now consider to be a valuable resource.
- Metro Vancouver's Burnaby incinerator burning through taxpayer money
The Burnaby incinerator, quietly burning a quarter of the region's waste, has proven a costly investment: $100 million has been spent on construction and upgrades to date. Even though the facility produces some electricity for the grid, it's uncertain whether the power is worth the cost for taxpayers.
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Up in Smoke
A plan by the Metro Vancouver regional authority would have taxpayers spending half a billion public dollars on an incinerator to solve the region’s garbage problem. Would that send Vancouver's...