Pricey landfills have municipalities scrambling

Councillors in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality are wondering where to take the trash.

All municipalities in Nova Scotia will have to dispose of waste in specially lined dumps, called second-generation landfills, by 2006. The liners are designed to prevent runoff, protecting the surrounding environment.

But the new landfills come with a hefty price tag. Municipal officials in Sydney say it could cost them up to $8 million to build a new dump.

A report recommends three options for the municipality: building a new landfill, upgrading an existing one, or shipping garbage to a second-generation landfill on the mainland.

Right now the municipality burns its garbage, and councillor Claire Dethridge says the provincial government must hand over some cash if it wants the municipality to put its trash in a new landfill.

"You put the cheque in the mail and we'll move on. Until that point we can't afford to be there. We're in incineration now with a landfill at the incineration site," she says.

Guysborough County plans to build a second-generation landfill, and is offering to take garbage from Cape Breton Island, and nearby Antigonish and Pictou counties to pay the bills.

"Anybody that thinks that they can run a second-generation based on that cost on smaller volumes is dreaming or they have lots of money to spend," says Lloyd Hines, Guysborough's warden.

The warden of Victoria County in Cape Breton, Wayne Budge, says they'll be sending their trash to Guysborough at a cost of $65 a tonne. "The cost for second-generation landfills is too rich for our blood."