A worker at the GVRD waste to energy plant looks on as garbage is incinerated to be turned into electricity and steam energy. (CBC)

Metro Vancouver is looking for public input into a plan to build six new waste-to-energy plants around the Lower Mainland to deal with the growing problem of too much garbage and not enough landfill space.

The media was invited to tour the facility Tuesday as a way to get public input into the plan to build the plants in dense urban areas, the latest attempt at solving the solid waste problem in the Lower Mainland.

The current landfill at Cache Creek near Kamloops is expected to be full by 2010, and in March Metro Vancouver board members voted to send landfill waste to the U.S. as a short-term solution.

A waste-to-energy plant has been operating in Burnaby since 1988, and currently processes 20 per cent of the region's solid waste.

According to the Metro Vancouver website, each year the plant "turns approximately 280,000 tonnes of garbage into 900,000 tonnes of steam, providing both economic and environmental benefits."

The energy from the incinerated garbage is sold to BC Hydro, and to a nearby paper recycling facility, reducing the plant's thirst for fossil fuel, the site says.

Garbage turned into energy

Marvin Hunt, chair of Metro Vancouver's waste committee, told reporters each tonne of garbage incinerated at the facility has the energy equivalent of a barrel of oil.

In other words, Hunt said, burying one million tonnes of garbage generated each year in the Greater Vancouver Regional District is like putting one million barrels of oil in the ground annually.

"Instead of seeing garbage as garbage, we're seeing garbage as a resource that we can actually use … instead of other resources," Hunt told reporters.

The region is losing $70 million a year by not burning the garbage, he said.

Hunt admitted the current plant is the second-worst producer of sulphur dioxide emissions in the area, but said the new plants would be cleaner thanks to improved technology.

"This is one of the cleanest stacks in North America but we could do better, and that is where we'd be going if we do another waste to energy facility," Hunt said.

Waste reduction, recycling

While the first goal in the long-term plan for garbage handling in the region is to "foster a Zero Waste Ethic through Metro Vancouver information, education, communication and community-based social marketing programs," critics wonder whether turning garbage into energy will discourage waste reduction and recycling.

Brock MacDonald, of the Recycling Council of B.C., told CBC News he is concerned the plan doesn't promote enough waste reduction.

"If people get into the mindset that 'Oh, it doesn't matter how much waste we make because it's a clean, green renewable resource' — which it's not — then why should they bother to reduce their waste," MacDonald said.

MacDonald said Metro Vancouver said the simple act of composting organic waste would reduce the amount of garbage headed to a landfill by 40 per cent.

Metro Vancouver comprises the Greater Vancouver Regional District, the Greater Vancouver Sewerage and Drainage District, the Greater Vancouver Water District and Metro Vancouver Housing Corp.

Its boards and committees, composed of mayors and councillors from each of the Lower Mainland's 22 municipalities and one treaty First Nation, oversee issues such as waste, air pollution and land use.