Metro Vancouver is one step closer to getting a new waste incinerator after the regional waste committee voted to forge ahead with a controversial plan to burn most garbage.
Right now, the Burnaby waste-to-energy plant burns about 20 per cent of Metro Vancouver's garbage, but the plan is to double the amount burned so that the region won't have to rely on trucking trash to the Cache Creek landfill four hours away.
The waste committee is recommending that a mass incinerator be built within Metro Vancouver, but some mayors say it should be constructed outside of the region.
"I don't have an argument with the technology itself," Port Moody Mayor Joe Trasolini told CTV News.
"I do have an argument as to where you locate the waste-to-energy plant. I don't think that within the Metro region, with the sensitive air of the Fraser Valley, I don't think we can go there."
The Metro Vancouver board will vote on the plan next week, and Environment Minister Barry Penner will have the final say.
Penner's riding is in the Fraser Valley, and that area has been the source of some of the strongest opposition to trash incineration.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Mi-Jung Lee
