Metro’s elected leaders will decide Tuesday whether to pursue burning the Portland area’s garbage to produce electricity at an incinerator four miles north of Salem.

The regional government’s staff will ask the Metro Council for authority to research the costs and benefits of burning our trash and open formal talks with Covanta, which operates the Marion County Energy-from-Waste Facility in Brooks, says Paul Slyman, Metro director of property and environmental services. Metro figures one-fifth of the tricounty area’s trash, about 200,000 tons a year, could get trucked to Brooks and burned, requiring Covanta to double the size of its plant.

Metro’s 30-year contract to truck most of the region’s garbage to the Arlington landfill in Eastern Oregon expires in four years, so it’s exploring garbage burning as one of two alternatives. The other option is Advanced Materials Recovery, which uses conveyor belts to screen out paper, cardboard, metals, plastics and other recyclable materials from the waste stream.

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