Nearly 200 Dresden residents turned out recently for a meeting to hear a proposal for a potential landfill and recycling facility just outside the community.
The site of the possible several-hundred-acre landfill and recycling centre sits on Irish School Road and is located just over a kilometer from the edge of the community and the east branch of the Sydenham River.
The meeting, sponsored by York1, a Mississauga firm that owns the property, took place at the Rotary Wheelhouse. Attendance was limited to 100 residents, but nearly that number remained outside for much of the two-hour meeting, waving protest signs and playing music.
Dawn Sullivan, who owns three properties near the site, said the suddenness of the proposal is concerning.
“We’re hearing that they (York1) have owned the property since 2022 and haven’t told the public anything about their plans. We have 45 days to give input. It doesn’t seem fair.”
Sullivan said she is very concerned about wells on her property and others as well as truck traffic and odour, light and noise pollution.
Sullivan and her friend Amber Montgomery brought several children to the demonstration.
“This is about our future and more importantly their future,” Montgomery said. “There has been a lot of effort to help our community with the Night Markets and Christmastown events. We don’t want to be known as a garbage drive-through for Toronto with 150 trucks a day going through town.”
Sullivan said children love to go to Molly’s Creek just south of the proposed landfill.
“The area has loads of turtles, minnows, rabbits and wildlife. Having it downstream of a dump that feeds into the Sydenham River makes no sense,” she said.
A proposal filed Jan. 31 and listed on the Environmental Registry of Ontario, https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/019-8205 is for an amendment to Environmental Compliance Approval No. A020401 for a 0.8-hectare waste processing site used for the storage, transfer and processing of non-hazardous solid waste, located at 29831 Irish School Rd.
The proposal seeks to expand use on an 85-acre site to bring in up to 6,000 tonnes each day on a 24-hour, seven-day per week basis.
The site would accept non-hazardous waste from construction and demolition as well as soil to be recycled or landfilled.
York1 has also purchased another 150 acres near the site and is in the process of acquiring more.
The company is relying on a 1979 provincial approval allowing the land to be used as a landfill and a waste transfer station.
On its website, https://york1.com/rrf/, York1 is touting the Dresden site as a regenerative recycling facility “that will focus on recovering valuable resources for recycling and reuse. The facility targets the recovery and beneficial re-use of 80 per cent of the construction waste that would have otherwise gone to landfill, helping the environment and conserving valuable materials.”
A number of attendees leaving the Feb. 10 meeting who didn’t want their names used were highly suspicious of the process.
“They’re a bunch of salesmen selling to people they think are small-town yokels,” said one man who operates a Dresden business.
A second public meeting will be held March 1 at the Ken Houston Memorial Agricultural Centre at 6 p.m.
Individuals can also make their views known online at the Environmental Registry of Ontario at https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/019-8205#connect-with-us until March 16.
York1 will be providing updates to the public through an email subscription list at https://york1.com/rrf/.
