Dealing with garbage: The incineration option

I took this photo of an incineration tower from a building in Ebisu Garden Place, Tokyo. It was one of many towers visible by scanning the city from above. There were no visible emissions coming from the stacks.

Upon arriving at my friends’ place here in Tokyo, my tour of the apartment included the trash facilities – the choices are combustible and non-combustible, and I believe PET bottles and aluminum cans are separated as well. So that’s it, all the combustibles are burned right here in the city, rather than trucking them out to the countryside. To make that work, the facilities would have to be clean, the emissions would have to be contained, or certainly people in this well-organized, clean city would complain.

According to this Washington Post article, one of the plants burns 300 tons of garbage a day, and actually creates electricity for use in the surrounding area from the process, as well as an ash that can be used in building materials.

I’ve often wondered if incineration would be a good choice for Canada’s cities – my view of the Tokyo skyline left no doubt.

How do you think we could manage waste better?