(CBC)

Welcome to our weekly newsletter where we highlight environmental trends and solutions that are moving us to a more sustainable world.

Hi, it’s Inayat! Last week, I saw an Instagram post about Toronto considering waste incineration, and it got me wondering if that was a good idea. It turns out there’s no pretty solution when it comes to dumping our garbage.

This week:

Why is Toronto considering burning its waste?

The Big Picture: Big data, big water use

Sprinklers save homes from wildfires

Why is Toronto considering burning its waste?

A grapple with metal arms grabs a pile of garbage from a containment room at the Durham York Energy Centre. One load is sent to the boilers every 15 minutes. (Frédéric Pepin/Radio-Canada)

In most of North America, the solution to getting rid of garbage is simple: dump it in a landfill. Over the decades, landfills have evolved into modern engineered structures that are built to prevent leaks, smells and air pollution.

But despite the advances, nobody wants a garbage dump in their backyard, as the City of Toronto is finding out while it faces a looming disposal crisis. The city is set to run out of space at its main landfill site, the Green Lane Landfill near London, Ont., by 2035, so it asked 378 municipalities within a 500-kilometre radius of Toronto if they would be open to accepting waste or hosting a new landfill.

Not one said yes.

Extending the life of the present landfill is also a problem, because Indigenous communities near the site don’t support expanding it and say they already suffer from the pollution and smells coming from the site.

So the city is considering incineration, or energy-from-waste — burning the waste and producing some energy from it. It included incineration in its recent public survey seeking advice and opinions from residents on what to do with the waste. And Torontonians don’t have to look far to see examples: there are waste incinerators in the region in Brampton , run by a private company, and in Durham region, run by the regional municipal government.

The Durham facility can handle 140,000 tonnes of waste annually, and has a long-term plan to expand to 250,000 tonnes.

How do emissions stack up?

Whether a landfill or an energy-from-waste facility is better from an emissions standpoint is disputed — and may