Please forward this widely, so as to help us fight a highly undesirable project that should NOT be allowed to go through.

People need to take a stand BEFORE it is too late concerning the issue of the garbage incinerator proposed for Durham Region. This is a project that, if approved, will have adverse implications in terms of health, environment and taxes, not only for local residents, but in many regards also well beyond. We are talking about serious matters here; yet, there are many with vested interest that would prefer that the people not be aware of the facts (Attachment 1).

People should appreciate that it is the pollutants that they do NOT see and the costs that they do NOT yet appreciate that are of grave concerns; in addition to high operating and environmental costs, these include congenital malformations, pulmonary illnesses and heavy metal toxicity. Incineration will also have an impact on local agriculture and dairy industry. It should be remember that DDT, Asbestos, Viox, Urea Formaldehyde, Tobacco, etc were once deemed to be "safe" (Attachment 2).

Incineration of municipal waste is particularly undesirable, given that its feedstock contains a random mixture of toxic products, including halogenated and heavy metal compounds. It is a prolific source of toxic gases and nanoparticles, including dioxins; these concentrate in various organs and are of great concern to the medical profession (Attachment 3).

Equally significant is the fact the proposal for Durham Region is an attempt by the incineration lobby to create a precedent for other similar plants elsewhere. So far, the general population has been kept rather uninformed, if not misinformed, while the facts, often presented by qualified opponents, were systematically ignored by decision-makers.

Opposing incineration does NOT mean advocating landfill – far from that. Both landfill and incineration are equally undesirable; in fact, incineration can be viewed as "Landfill in Sky". There are however suitable options that have been systematically ignored by the politicians. It is not the place to discuss these here; the important matter at this stage however is to stop the incineration project BEFORE a contract is awarded.

It is time, now more than ever, for the public at large to exert pressures on politicians, before a point-of-no-return is reached. This can only be effective if there is a large level of public outcry towards provincial politicians.

Step 1. Send a short personalized letter, i.e. a few sentences only, complete with your name, address and telephone number, to the Provincial Minister of the Environment:

by post: Hon. John Gerretsen, Minister of the Environment, Queen’s Park, Toronto, Ontario, M5H 2N2.

Thus, as Step 1, we need to flood the office of the Minister with letters and e-mails from a wide range of resident voters.

Step 2. We also need you to use every opportunity to ask others to do the same. Please widely forward this request to your e-mail contact list of Ontario residents, possibly including a supportive statement on your part. People receiving such forwarded mail should take the outlined action and, in turn, forward this request. Help us (and help you!) by being an anti-incineration advocate in your own circle of contacts – people should appreciate being informed of the implications.

Step 3. Hand out printed copies of the covering letter portion of this request whenever and wherever encountering others, such as in shopping areas. Get to talk to strangers; they should appreciate being told how to avoid what will hurt them later! Recipients who receive this as forwarded mail should also hand out printed copies of this letter.

Step 4. Post this on various bulletin boards in your area, including, if possible, electronic ones and social network systems.

Opponents to incineration have very limited resources to reach-out and much of the population is unaware of what is really going on. At this stage, it is important to send a strong message sent to the Minister. This is no longer a technical or economic issue; it is a political matter where the numbers do matter. Thank you for taking action.

The sad reality of what we are being confronted with has been cleverly captured by Scott Adams (Attachment 4).

It is a well-documented fact that incineration is a source of cancers and respiratory illnesses, with adverse impacts on the biosphere, i.e. air, water and local farming, including dairy, meat and egg products.

Unbelievable as it may be, the Environmental Assessment (E.A.) was performed under the utopian assumption that all systems are perfectly operational 100% of the time, that system redundancy is not required and that operators never make errors! The assumption of these ideal operation conditions is physically impossible on a continued basis and contributes to flawed conclusions that grossly underestimate the overall level of exposure.

In fact, this E.A. falsely presents the risk on the basis of the best of the best, rather than the probable worst, operating scenario.

Incineration will introduce toxins and nanoparticles in the body, thus affecting hormonal and DNA-regulated processes, as well as embryonic development & breastfed infants.

Incineration will be economically disastrous in terms of capital costs and operating costs, i.e. taxes. Moreover, it does NOT do away with the need for the landfill – something that we had been promised all along by the politicians.

The consequences of incineration are graphically – but only partially – depicted in the attached. More information, including papers from truly peer-reviewed Scientific Journals, are obtainable from the Internet.

The section below only contains a very small list of substantive information.

The following videos on YouTube are from "Health Care without Harm". Although the title refers to pyrolysis, the health implications of incineration are well covered:

The following video replay from the TV Programme "60 Minutes" is an outline of the fallacies of promoter’s statements that tell us that "There is Nothing to Worry About" - something that we have already heard in numerous other failed instances…

Please, do not just be angry! Take action NOW, as time is running out, by sending a short note of opposition to the Provincial Minister of the Environment:

by post: Hon. John Gerretsen, Minister of the Environment, Queen’s Park, Toronto, Ontario, M5H 2N2.

Please remember that Incineration, whether it is called EFW or WTE or something else, is an infamous project that will have a marked impact on "H.E.A.L.T.H.";