Marion County approves increased garbage collection prices, incinerator extension

Marion County’s garbage will still be sent to a landfill beginning in January, but the Reworld Marion Inc. incinerator in Brooks will have until the end of June to finish burning the waste it’s accumulated.

Marion County Commissioners approved both an increase in waste disposal prices and a contract amendment that will allow the incinerator to extend operations after its partnership with the county ends.

“Residents have to write the check” as a result of the “short-sighted” 2023 bill that may have attributed to the incinerator’s closure, county commissioner Danielle Bethell said during a board of commissioners meeting this month.

The new amendment allows New Jersey-based Reworld to continue to “process and dispose of all waste … as part of the decommissioning process.” The incinerator will cease its collection of garbage in Marion County on Dec. 31, as the Statesman Journal reported earlier this month .

Reworld currently receives most of Marion County garbage and is the only incinerator in the state. The Statesman Journal in 2021 found it also burns medical and industrial waste from other places. Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality has fined the incinerator for multiple air quality violations.

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