The province has no plan to deal with the mountains of trash generated in Toronto each year if Michigan follows through on threats to close its border to garbage, but could make it easier to open new landfills in Ontario, Environment Minister Laurel Broten said Wednesday.
"One of the things my ministry is doing is taking an aggressive look at the Environmental Assessment Act," Broten said on her way into a Liberal cabinet meeting.
"It is not acceptable in this province to take so long to site a landfill, and that's one of the things we're taking a look at."
A report commissioned by Toronto, York, Peel and Durham regions lists landfills near London, Hamilton, Petrolia, Cornwall, Chatham, Halton, Waterloo, Brantford and Essex-Windsor as possible sites for 3.5 million tonnes of trash generated in the Greater Toronto Area every year.
The Conservatives and NDP called it a "secret" government list of possible dump sites for Toronto's trash, but Broten said it was simply a list of options that everyone is already aware of.
