Metro will spend $150 million to send thousands of tonnes of trash to U.S., B.C. Interior

Metro Vancouver voted on Friday to award three five-year contracts to send tens of thousands of tonnes of excess trash to landfills across the border in the U.S. and to B.C.’s Interior.

The contracts, which range from $44.7 million to $48.5 million each, are to process waste that exceeds the capacity of Metro Vancouver’s waste-disposal facilities, including the Vancouver Landfill in Delta and an incinerator in Burnaby that burns garbage to produce electricity.

The Vancouver Landfill is authorized to accept up to 750,000 tonnes of solid waste each year. In 2021, it was granted a temporary increase to accept 825,000 tonnes. The waste-to-energy site burns about 260,000 tonnes a year.

Metro Vancouver has generated more waste in each of the past four years than at any time since the 1960s. That increase has largely been driven by increasing municipal waste, sand and soil.