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Laurel's trash will become a conversion company's treasure when W2 Energy sets up a waste-to-energy truck behind the Department of Public Works next year. City officials signed a letter of intent last week to partner with Ontario-based W2 and allow it to recycle four tons of trash into diesel fuel and electricity each day on a three-month trial basis.

The move is beneficial to both parties, said Laurel Public Works Director Paul McCullagh. Laurel spends about $300,000 per year to dump its trash in a Prince George's County landfill, McCullagh said.

"Trash disposal is a huge problem for all the cities and states," he said. "They either bury it or burn it, and neither one of them is very environmentally friendly."

W2, a private company which has its sales and marketing departments based in Laurel, will benefit from having the space and material to test out the waste-to-energy process, in addition to the revenue from the conversion's byproducts.

David Freund, a Laurel resident who is also W2's vice president of business development, said the company had approached about 50 other municipalities nationwide about hosting the waste-to-energy prototype, and most declined to participate. Two other Maryland towns are interested in a partnership, Freund said, but others in the area have declined.

"They were more bureaucratic and not as environmentally motivated," Freund said.

The city of Laurel, however, was enthusiastic about the proposal.

"When I met Laurel [officials] they were extremely progressive and excited, and that makes it exciting for us," Freund said.

The waste-to-energy process is similar to plasma gasification, which uses extremely high temperatures to change almost all waste materials into other compounds in an oxygen-starved environment. The infrastructure for the process is typically very expensive, McCullagh said, but W2's model uses lower temperatures and is therefore more cost-efficient.

W2 could have its converter vehicle set up in Laurel by July 2010, McCullagh said. Officials will run a trial period and then reevaluate the partnership, he said.

The initial four tons is only a small portion of the 28 tons of trash the city sends to the landfill four days of the week. But if the prototype is successful, McCullagh said, the city plans to provide space for a permanent unit that would be large enough to process all of its garbage.

City Councilwoman Donna Crary (Ward 2) said she doesn't know all the details of the arrangement but supports the city taking any steps it can to reduce waste and pollution.

"Anything that helps in that area I think is just wonderful," she said.