The meeting was organised by members of the campaign group SAVI (Stop Aylesbury Vale Incineration), who are concerned over the impact a proposed energy-from-waste incinerator near the Calvert landfill site could have on the local area.
Maggi Campbell Keith, a member of SAVI, said: "People at the meeting were generally very concerned. Some were particularly concerned because they'd heard nothing about it, and felt it had been slipped in under the radar.
"Even though there's no planning permission at the moment, we're very worried by the fact that so few people locally seem to have heard about it at all.
"People came to the meeting to get more information. We got an awful lot of support from people at the meeting. People were wanting to get involved and were asking what they could do to help."
The Calvert incinerator has been proposed by the Waste Recycling Group (WRG) as part of Bucks County Council's future waste management strategy. The council says it will be hit by huge Government fines if it does not rapidly reduce the amount of waste it sends to landfill.
Bucks County Council's waste service manager, Martin Dickman, said: "The county council has to respond to the threat of crippling financial penalties if we continue to landfill our waste. There is also the very real environmental damage to the environment by methane from rotting landfilled waste."
He said the council had consulted the public at every stage of the project since 2007, and had been open about its strategy throughout.
Mr Dickman added: "At present we have two excellent bidders putting forward proposals that will help Bucks reduce the amount of waste going to landfill. "We have not made a decision on which company will be our preferred bidder. We expect to make that decision in July this year and in the meantime we continue to keep all Buckinghamshire's residents informed."
A second firm, Covanta, hopes to build a waste incinerator for Buckinghamshire's waste at a site in neighbouring Bedfordshire.
Paul Green, WRG's senior development manager, defended waste incinerators' safety record. He said: "No study has shown any adverse health effects in the vicinity of a modern municipal waste incinerator clearly related to the plant.
"These are safe facilities which have an imperceptible impact on the environmental and health situation in their neighbourhood."
WRG says the incinerator building will be 51 metres at its tallest point, and the chimney could be up to 310ft tall.
Mr Green said the plant would be designed to blend into the landscape, and that the actual height of the chimney would only be decided once studies had taken place to determine how emissions from the chimney would disperse.
Initial estimates suggest there would be 100 lorries entering and leaving the site each day.
However, WRG says access would be via a new road to be constructed from the A41 to the south of the site, using a disused railway line.
Mr Green said: "This would remove lorry traffic that currently passes through local villages, particularly Grendon Underwood, Edgcott and Calvert on the way to the landfill site."
The plant would operate 24 hours a day, although WRG says waste would only be delivered between 7.30am and 5.30pm.
SAVI plans to host another public meeting in Quainton Village Hall on Tuesday, May 5, starting at 6.30pm.