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Fire and explosions recap

REPORT

As we regularly report, fires and explosions have occurred at waste treatment facilities because of improper storage or handling of materials.

One Fire Marshall has gathered statistics on fires at waste facilities that show the following:

There were 15 fires at waste transfer sites, including two injuries.

There were 35 fires in recycling facilities, including six injuries and one death. The injuries were primarily to workers at the facilities.

Municipal incinerators have also had explosions resulting in injury and death to workers in the facilities.

The most notorious fire at a recycling plant in Canada was the fire in July 1997 at Plastimet in Hamilton. This fire burnt for four days and resulted in a one-day evacuation of a residential neighbourhood. Four hundred tonnes of plastics, including the carcinogen polyvinyl chloride, were burnt. These materials were supposed to have been recycled. After the fire, Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment found levels of dioxins, furans, lead, cadmium, zinc, copper and molybdenum far exceeding Ministry guidelines for acceptability.

The build up and seepage of methane from landfill sites into neighbouring homes has caused explosions and fires and long-term evacuations.

In 1976 the residents of an 81-unit townhouse development in Kitchener, Ontario, started moving out of their homes because of fear of explosions from methane seeping from an adjacent municipal landfill. By 1986, the development had become a ghost town. In late 1993, the units were reopened after Waterloo Region spent over $6 million on new gas extraction wells and a barrier wall between the landfill and the homes.