Plans to push it forward, saying tariff war poses threat to the waste industry

Heather Wright/The Independent

Saying the threat of US tariffs on Ontario’s is threatening Ontario’s waste sector, the province has launched legislation to remove the environmental assessment requirements of the York1 Waste Project.

It’s part of the Doug Ford government’s new Protecting Ontario by Unleashing our Enconmy Act.

The posting on the Environmental Registry of Ontario says the proposed act would cancel “Ontario Regulation 284/24 designating Chatham-Kent Waste Disposal Site and removing environmental assessment (EA) requirements for York1 Environmental Waste Solutions Ltd.’s proposal to resume landfill operations and expand waste handling, processing, and transfer operations at the former Dresden Tile Yard, in Chatham-Kent.”

That legislation was passed last year after a community outcry after the Mississauga waste company unveiled its plans for the site less than a kilometre from Dresden. York1 says about 20 acres of the 85-acre property was approved in the past as a landfill. York1, which has owned the property since 2022, wants to expand that bringing up to 6,000 tonnes of waste a day from construction and demolition sites and soils to be either recycled or landfilled at the site. The operation, the original proposal said, would run 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

In February, the company tried to go through the less stringent Environmental Compliance Approval process, but a community outcry forced an Environmental Assessment on the land.

“The project will remain subject to strong provincial oversight and other regulatory requirements including Environmental Compliance Approvals (ECA) under the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) and Ontario Water Resources Act (OWRA),” says the posting.  

More to come…