The fires in Hamilton's SWARU garbage incinerator are out for good.

Yesterday's shutdown came as something of a surprise because it had appeared Dec. 16 was the soonest the plant would close in the wake of council's decision to stop burning waste.

The early action was applauded by both Chad Collins and Sam Merulla, east-end councillors who had pushed to end noise and air pollution from SWARU, especially after learning it had become Canada's largest source of airborne dioxins and furans -- suspected carcinogens.

The 30-year-old incinerator had been slated to run until Dec. 31, 2006, until the province imposed tougher operating rules in response to a review requested under Ontario's Environmental Bill of Rights by environmentalists Lynda Lukasik and Mark Muldoon.

The closure comes as a second major victory for Lukasik, who took the ** city to court to stop the Rennie Street dump from polluting Red Hill Creek a few years ago.

Council decided to start shipping all the city's garbage to the Glanbrook landfill after staff reported the incinerator could not meet pollution limits imposed by a new provincial operating certificate.

Without SWARU, city residents could soon face a weekly garbage limit of three bags or three containers per household as part of a stepped-up war on waste aimed at delaying the need for a new landfill site and avoiding construction of a new incinerator.

Andrea Horwath, city council's garbage guru, says finding a place to build either a landfill or an incinerator would involve a long, expensive fight, with no assurance residents would accept them anywhere within city boundaries.

When council adopted a new waste management master plan a year ago, Horwath was chosen to chair a political steering committee charged with implementing it by 2007, a target set when SWARU was expected to run to the end of 2006.

Groundwork for the plan was laid by a broadly based public advisory group that concluded a new incinerator, even a cleaner-burning one that would also generate electricity, should be considered only if it looked to be impossible to compost, recycle or otherwise divert 65 per cent of our garbage from landfill.

The idea was to do without an incinerator and still make the landfill last another 25 years, a goal jeopardized, if not scuttled, by SWARU's early shutdown. So, in voting to close the incinerator, councillors also decided to quickly look at imposing a three-bag limit -- a potential political minefield -- and to beef up recycling efforts next year.

Peter Yemen, business manager for the union that represents 37 of the 45 people who run SWARU, says the 65 per cent goal is unrealistic. He wants the city to move immediately to build a new incinerator.

City residents now recycle only about 18 per cent of their waste, and even council is skeptical about the prospects of more than tripling that figure. The waste plan called for exploring the need for a new energy-from-waste incinerator or other high-temperature disposal technology in 2006, the year SWARU had been slated to close. Council is now ready to start looking at that option.

About the 65 per cent goal, Horwath says: "We'll never do it if we're pessimistic about it. Halifax, Edmonton and other cities are doing it right here in Canada. That's the goal we've really got to strive for."

While it might be possible to squeeze more waste into the existing landfill -- perhaps by compacting it more so it takes up less space -- staff say the present rate of dumping will fill the Glanbrook site in 10 years. That's less time than it would probably take to find and open a new one.

When they were looking at Glanbrook's lasting 25 years, officials said the city should put $4 million a year into a reserve fund for a new site. Now they say the amount should be $14.8 million -- money Horwath says will be impossible to find in the 2003 budget.

So, while doing without SWARU next year will be a tiny bit cheaper -- 0.1 per cent -- a bigger bill will eventually come due.

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Solid Waste Management Master Plan