CEGC 5: Inclusive and sustainable industrialization: Ohsweken Six Nations​ & Carleton Place

Ohsweken

A Community Addressing their Waste Management

Ohsweken  is a community, with a population of 1,500 people, located on the Six Nations reserve south of Hamilton  (Groat, 2020). The Six Nations reserve, with a population of 12,892 people, has a landfill that services their population (Groat, 2020). The landfill reached its capacity in 2006 at twice the expected rate and much earlier than planned. It has remained in use by piling waste on top of the full landfill (Huang, 2014). The landfill does not have a lining such that the liquids produced by the waste are permeating in the surrounding soil. The community has been looking for a solution to their waste management needs. The solution was an incinerator that promised zero emissions. A five-month long trial operation of the incinerator emitted dioxins and furans at 200 times the Ontario limits, lead and cadmium at 25 times the Ontario limits and above standard levels of carbon monoxide and nitric oxide (Green, 2015). The trial run was interrupted due to a community lead protest requesting the shut down of the incinerator due to the emissions, odour, and concerns about the health of the residents (Huang, 2014). In 2019, the government of Canada together with the Six Nations, agreed to build a transfer station for the management of residential waste and recyclables and close the landfill (Government of Canada, 2019).

References

Carleton Place

Concrete, CO2, and Climate Change

Carleton Place is a rapidly growing town with a population of 12,517 in 2021 (Statistics Canada, 2023) located on the outskirts of Ottawa . According to an external report conducted in 2021, the municipality will need the building of new homes by 2038 to meet the projected population growth (Richards & Associates Limited, 2021). The construction of additional homes will require concrete, particularly in the foundations of the homes. Concrete, a mix of many materials, has very high GHG emissions due to its cement content (Government of Canada, 2022). The production of cement generates CO2 when combining and heating limestone, clay, and iron ore or ash to extreme temperatures using fossil fuels. New processes and technologies to reduce the GHG emissions of cement manufacture are being examined (MIT, 2021).

References

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Enabling the Canadian Engineering Grand Challenges for Educators - Encourageons la dissémination par les éducateurs des grands défis pour le génie canadien Copyright © by Nadine Ibrahim; Christine Moresoli; and John Donald is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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