Decision Reached on Vaporizing Marion's Trash

City Council Member Joe Spinks confirmed in an email to Marion Patch that Plasma Power LLC has approved the contract for Marion to provide waste for a trash vaporizing facility.

This comes after the Marion City Council amended the contract earlier this week to provide more financial incentives to Marion and lowering the amount of trash per-day that Marion would be required to send to the facility.

In a previous interview with Marion Patch, Marion City Administrator, Lon Pluckhahn, said the next step is to finalize the language of the agreement, followed by a waiting period.

Plasma Power LLC, a Florida based company, will then either chose to locate their plant in Marion or Cedar Rapids. Pluckhahn said the company would like to have the facility completed by next winter.

The process that takes place in the facility is called plasma arc, which high energy plasma is used to break down trash into molecules, which results in a natural gas like product and an inert rock byproduct.