A plan that could lower garbage fees, extend the life of the Franklin County landfill and generate $40 million annually has officials excited, but because similar plans previously fizzled, this one is being greeted with judicious hopefulness.
“We want this landfill to last as long as it can,” said Ty Marsh, executive director of the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio, the owner and operator. “Building a landfill is a very expensive proposition.”
The landfill — immediately west of I-71 in Jackson Township in the southwest part of the county — opened in 1984 and takes in about 100 million tons of trash a year. About 170 acres of the 283-acre site is used to hold trash, leaving a landfill life of about 24 years.
Looking to extend that life, Marsh and his team came up with a plan to divert up to 70 percent of what now goes into the landfill and recycling or composting it. Although the landfill’s life span is the primary focus for Marsh and SWACO, that diverted trash could be sold to recyclers, generating more than $40 million a year for SWACO, a study commissioned by the agency projected.
Part of the plan is a reduced tipping fee, the charge for waste haulers to dump trash in the landfill. Tipping fees produce 95 percent of SWACO’s $48 million annual budget.
A $3 reduction in the tipping fee, from $42.75 to $39.75 per ton, could result in lower garbage bills for residents and businesses. Marsh hopes waste haulers would pass on the savings to customers.
Rob Smith of Capitol Waste & Recycling Services, one of the haulers using the landfill, isn’t sure that a SWACO fee decrease would lead to lower garbage-pickup bills because the costs of fuel and employee benefits aren’t decreasing, but it could eliminate or limit a future increase.
“Overall,” Smith said, “it will have a positive effect on the consumer.”
The lowered tipping fee is possible because SWACO expects early in 2017 to pay off the 30-year-old debt for a since-demolished trash incinerator it took on when the agency was created in 1984. That should create savings of $7 per ton.
To read full story, visit http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/11/06/plan-would-extend-life-of-landfill.html.