The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has approved an expansion of the Rolling Hills Landfill in Earl Township. The Delaware County Solid Waste Authority, the landfill’s owner, wanted to increase the facility’s capacity, not by dumping trash on additional land but by building higher berms around the landfill and putting trash in empty airspace on the 162 acres designated for waste disposal by DEP.
Delaware County sends its trash in the form of ash to the landfill. According to the solid waste authority, about 400,000 tons of commercial and residential trash annually are processed at an incinerator, with the ash residue shipped to Rolling Hills.
In 2018, Berks County residential, commercial and industrial trash accounted for 51% of the trash (non-ash) accepted in the landfill, 19% of the total received. Also, 35% of the total loads received at the landfill are from Berks, according to comments submitted in 2019.
The DEP approval allows the landfill to add 8.8 million cubic yards of disposal volume and more than 10 years of waste disposal capacity to the landfill. Without the expansion, the landfill was expected to reach capacity by 2025. The expansion will not increase the currently permitted maximum elevation, disposal area footprint, property boundary or daily volumes of waste accepted, according to DEP.