A proposal submitted Tuesday calls for the current Carp Road landfill to be closed, capped and monitored once the proposed new landfill is opened. (Waste Management Inc.)

Ottawa mayor Larry O'Brien said he plans to fight a proposal to build another landfill to replace the existing Carp Road dump.

On Tuesday Waste Management Inc. announced it is seeking approval from the Ontario government to build a facility capable of accepting up to 400,000 tonnes of waste per year.

The facility would be located on the same 142-hectare property in Ottawa's western rural outskirts where it already operates a 35-hectare landfill, which the company said it would close once the new landfill was up and running.

O'Brien said landfills are "the option of last choice" and not needed with the city's new organic waste program up and running and plans to work out a deal with Plasco Energy Group to direct some waste to its waste-to-energy plant.

"Between the green bin technology and what I now believe is a finished Plasco, there's no argument that can be made for expanding a landfill site," said O'Brien, who spoke with CBC from Shenzhen, China, where he is leading a trade delegation of Ottawa business leaders.

The city announced in January that it was ready to sign a deal with Plasco, the Ottawa-based venture that has been working on an experimental waste-disposal technology called plasma gasification.

At full capacity the plant is supposed to be capable of diverting 85 tonnes of waste a day from the city's landfills while generating enough electricity to run the facility and power 3,600 homes.

Technology still being tested

O'Brien is confident the technology will prove effective and said a memorandum of understanding between Plasco and the city of Beijing has been the "piece de resistance" of the current trade mission.

"There is a certain amount of testing left to be done, but none of the testing at this point indicates that there are going to be any problems," said O'Brien.

The problem for the city in arguing its case against the landfill is that neither Plasco nor Orgaworld Canada — the company contracted to compost organic waste from the city's green bin program — would be dealing with waste from the industrial, commercial and institutional sectors the Carp Road dump currently handles.

Waste Management said the current landfill's low capacity means it is now redirecting much of this waste to facilities in the state of New York. The company estimates it could take three years to get all the approvals it needs from the province to expand the Carp Road dump.

The company had previously made a proposal to triple the size of the Carp Road landfill. However it temporarily withdrew the application in 2007 after fierce public opposition.

Waste Management's proposal includes recycling and composting facilities on-site to help divert waste away from the landfill itself, and also includes plans to burn methane gas to create electricity and power greenhouses the company expects to build.

Google map showing location of Carp Road dump

View Larger Map With files from the CBC's Alistair Steele