Waiting for green energy hub news from AMO

We are waiting with bated breath for concrete news after this week’s Association of Municipalities of Ontario’s 2010 conference held in Windsor. There were more than 1,400 attendees present, with over 60 sessions and workshops planned. Representatives of the Brantford Brant Chamber of Commerce’s green energy hub movement were expected to be in attendance, ostensibly to seek provincial support to help market the region as a go-to place for green business, research, energy and education, mentioned in an earlier news report by County of Brant Mayor Ron Eddy. What we do know is that incoming AMO president Norm Sandberg touched on the need to champion waste diversion, an issue that raised hackles in The Green Hub just a few months back.
And we quote, from his opening remarks:
“Placing water bottles, bleach and batteries in garbage bags may be convenient, but we know it is not smart.
We must continue our efforts to convince our residents that these items need to be diverted from landfills and disposed of safely.
We must also convince industry to take on greater responsibility for their products … and create waste management systems that recognize those manufacturers who do.
We cannot be deterred by recent controversies.
There was a time when blue boxes were a crazy idea.
‘It will never work’ they said.  ‘You are out of touch’ they said.  We were told they were too inconvenient.
Nevertheless, municipalities lead the movement to introduce recycling and it has succeeded.
Waste diversion must continue to evolve and grow.  We must show Ontarians why it makes more sense to have industry pay waste management costs than it does to bury them in our property tax bills.”
What should we read into that? At this point, more needs to be explained … As we said, we are waiting with bated breath.