TORONTO - Burning garbage to create energy could be a solution to overloaded landfill sites and Ontario wants to be ahead of the pack in developing incineration technology, Premier Dalton McGuinty said on Wednesday.

While environmental groups called incineration a dirty and expensive technology, McGuinty defended a government move to allow municipalities to launch pilot projects and skip a lengthy environmental assessment process under certain conditions.

He highlighted an existing test in Ottawa that turns garbage into a gas.

"That gas, as it turns out, burns cleaner than natural gas, so it's better for the environment,'' McGuinty said.

"There are fewer greenhouse gases, fewer toxic emissions, so I think that's something we should be exploring.''

He said he's willing to let the small pilot projects bypass some procedural hoops because the province has an opportunity to become a leader in incineration -- or it could get left behind.

"We could've said, `Take two years, go through the whole rigmarole,' and you know what they would have said: `We're going to Austria','' McGuinty said.

"We need to develop these kinds of technologies here.''

Environmentalists said the premier should be focusing on recycling instead of burning garbage, which is expensive and can create more emissions than coal if not done properly.

"When you burn garbage, you're putting out 33 per cent more carbon dioxide than when you burn coal, and the United Nations environment program says that 60 per cent of the world's dioxins comes from burning garbage,'' said New Democrat critic Peter Tabuns.

"This premier is caught up with convenience in dealing with a problem and is not interested in sustainability or dealing with climate change.''

A recent report on garbage incineration by the Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy warns against making it the key to a waste strategy but doesn't discount the technology.

"There have been great advancements in the ability to filter out pollutants,'' said report author Maureen Carter-Whitney.

"But we believe that waste management needs to be led not by technology, but by a strong comprehensive waste-management policy framework . . . and we're hoping it would reflect a strong emphasis on waste reduction and diversion.''

Sierra Legal lawyer and economist Anastasia Lintner said the province should not skip full environmental assessments.

"The pilot projects require intense environmental scrutiny,'' Lintner said.

"Until they're proven to not have environmental impacts that are dangerous, they shouldn't be adopted on a broad basis.''

John Steele, of Ontario's Ministry of the Environment, said the government is confident new incinerators won't hurt the environment and bypassing the assessment is a matter of economics.

The technology is expensive and making a company go through a long approval process makes it difficult to finance new projects.

McGuinty wouldn't promise that new incinerators will be perfectly clean but said they will all have to meet government regulations.

"They have to always respect our rigorous air-quality standards.''