A series of public meetings begin Monday night in Metro Vancouver to discuss whether it's better to bury garbage in the ground or to burn it in an incinerator.
The meetings are being held as public forums for residents to discuss what step will be taken next once the Vancouver and Cache Creek landfills close within the next decade.
Getting cash for trash by harnessing energy from garbage incinerators is looking attractive for some municipalities.
"There are many different options with the waste energy; it doesn't mean one big large facility," Port Coquitlam Mayor Greg Moore told CTV News.
While incinerators are thought to harness energy, Abbotsford councillor Patricia Ross worries air pollution created by incinerators will end up in the upper Fraser Valley, which Ross says already suffer with poor air quality.
"I don't know where they got the notion that putting [garbage] in the sky is better than putting it the ground," Ross said.
The Fraser Valley fought off the U.S. power company Sumas Energy 2, which proposed building a power plant that would create 800 tonnes of pollution each year.
"At least in the ground you can control it, but once it's in the sky there's nothing you can do. The pollutants are there -- we can do nothing but breathe it," Ross said.
A plan for the future of waste disposal in Metro Vancouver will be presented to the provincial government in July.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Julia Foy
