In the Spotlight
The Newton, IA Landfill: A Smooth Operation
While navigating the local, State and federal political landscapes, the Newton, IA landfill has maintained its operations timely and efficiently.
The Newton, IA landfill started out as an old strip mine in 1945. When it first was created, trash was dumped at the site and whenever it was needed the garbage was set on fire and pushed into the old strip mine. As the rules have changed throughout the years, the dump was transitioned to a sanitary landfill in the late 1960s. However, at that time the trash would still pile it up but it didn’t get covered according to today’s standards. Finally, as the regulations changed, the way processing the waste was changed as well. Now, serving all of Jasper County, the landfill operation has five full-time employees and hire part-time people to help with the litter control, mowing, weeding and other maintenance as needed.
The landfill deals with not only solid waste, but some recyclables—plastics, glass and metals—and they also act as a drop-off for recycling motor oil, antifreeze, car batteries, tires, etc. Because many of the major communities they serve have gone to curbside recycling, most of the recycling items that they get are hygiene products and leftover household products from rural residences. In addition, they take yard compost, burning the brush and composting the rest to use onsite.
Navigating Tough Times
Rod Vandusseldorp, Superintendent of the Newton, IA Landfill explains that although they have experienced cutbacks due to a slow economy, they are staying even with demand across the board and still getting things done efficiently. “It seems like every time the economy slows down, the first place everyone wants to cut is in sanitation because its one of those things that are out of sight, out of mind,” says Vandusseldorp. “Not every sees the landfill, so if you don’t have the equipment or the manpower to keep the garbage covered or compacted, they don’t think about it because they don’t see it. Most of the things that get neglected are some of the maintenance—grounds or equipment—because you don’t have the time and the people to do it properly.”
Vandusseldorp says that he’s seen less waste come in since economy has fluxuated. At one time, the city of Newtown housed the Maytag headquarters and the factory’s waste resulted in 20 percent of the landfill’s volume. However, when the facility closed in 2008, it made a pretty big cut in the landfill’s volume although there was an influx of waste from the closedown for another year. Vandusseldorp points out that the good thing is some other small businesses did come into town after Maytag closed—in 2009 Trinitiy Towers, a company that makes towers for the turbines and a wind turbine company, TPI, in 2010. “So we have offset a lot of what we lost from the closure of Maytag,” says Vandusseldorp.
Another thing Vandusseldorp has noticed is that back when the economy was doing better and based on Maytag, the landfill would see a lot of discarded appliances every year at Christmas time. “We don’t see that like we used to. We also have seen a lot more remodeling going on rather than new construction. Landfills can be a great barometer of the economy.”
Availability to the Community
Every year, the Newton, IA Landfill held three recycling events, however due to the traffic problem it would create and the landfill’s vicinity to the highway, these events were eliminated in lieu of allowing people to bring in their recyclables either as a drop off or via appointment. “It keeps the crowds and the lines down and is a lot more manageable,” says Vandusseldorp. He goes on to point out that they do advertise the services available. In addition, he has given talks at the local schools when requested— from elementary to college—and the landfill has provided many tours usually during the spring months, April and May (i.e., Earth Day). Says Vandusseldorp, “We did a full day tour about two years ago for college students from mainly European countries. It was very interesting because they asked a lot of good questions and we shared a lot of information back and forth on how they did things in other countries. For example, Germany is much more advanced in recycling than we are. They were fascinated by the amount of ground that we had for our small landfill and the way we did things.” When the landfill was going through a rapid rules change back in the early 1990s, there were a lot of requests to do the onsite visits, explains Vandusseldorp, and now that the rules have been fairly consistent for the last five years, the number of tour and lecture requests has stayed pretty consistent.
Training and Safety
At the landfill, training and safety go hand in hand. When a new employee comes onboard, the first thing management does is to send them through a state-certified operations training class so they can get a state certification. They also do first aid and CPR training through the local Red Cross. Every year during the winter months when things are slower, the staff sits down and goes through their emergency response procedures and prevention plans (which is part of safety program). “We have a safety consultant that comes in and does a 10-hour refresher training every year and he also holds classes on compliance space entry, traffic control and others. We also work through the Metro Waste Authority on household hazardous waste to train on that stuff which is an eight-hour annual class,” says Vandusseldorp. Because of the low number of employees and staggered hours, new personnel works by themselves on a weekend morning with a supervisor before moving to weekdays. Although the employee may not be riding on the piece of equipment with someone, the supervisor will be in the vicinity while the employee is getting the feel of the equipment and how it operates. In addition, management holds off on the new employees interacting with the customers until they feel comfortable enough with the equipment.
The Political Landscape
Currently, says Vandusseldorp, his biggest challenge is politics, all at the local, state and federal levels. “Again it is the out of sight, out of mind thinking. When you go to a local government and tell them that you need to raise these fees because the state has changed the regulations on post-closure funding, the price of fuel is going up or we need equipment replacement and maintenance, they think we don’t need it because they want to use fund in another way,” he says. “The city of Newton oversees the landfill as daily operation so we have to go through the city council in order to do anything minor. If it’s a major expense or repair we have to notify all of the 80 members of what’s going on so they can have an official board meeting. Answer time varies—a couple of years ago we had a tractor that had a major breakdown and for three weeks we were trying to get someone to make a decision. There has been other times when we’ve had a breakdown and had an answer in a couple of hours. It’s hard to predict and gets a little frustrating.
He points out that politics is also a challenge for them at a larger because while it seems easy for someone sitting in a desk to come up with an idea or plan on changing a rule or regulation, when it comes down to the reality of doing it, there’s usually a cost factor involved that no one really wants to look at. “When it comes to some ideas, there’s not a lot of common sense to their thinking and sometimes not even a need. However, once these ideas get thrown out into the public and people think it sounds great, someone starts putting the pencil to the paper on what it may cost and finds out, it’s not such a good plan.”
Major Changes Through the Years
Despite these challenges, Vandusseldorp is most proud of all that the landfill has become today—transitioning from a dump to a compliant and smooth operation—especially since it was a major change not only in educating the public but also the people who work at the facility. In addition, he stresses that getting into household hazardous waste disposal in 1995 was a very big accomplishment that has been received and used very well. Now when people need to get rid of household hazardous waste such as leftover draino, oil, car batteries, etc. they will bring it to the landfill. The influx of this type of waste varies with the weather, however, Vandusseldorp says that spring and fall are usually when they see the heaviest amount of volume since people are getting ready for winter or summer. “We’ll run somewhere in the area of 75 to 150 people per month during April, May, September and October. Now we try to limit taking household hazardous waste in the winter since the facilities we have out here aren’t heated. Several years ago, it was one of those winters where it was below freezing at night and the latex paint cans that had been collected split, so there was latex paint all over the ground. When the weather warmed up we were able to clean it up, but we basically we quit taking household hazardous waste in the winter from that point on.” Vandusseldorp is quick to point out, however, that if there is an emergency, such as a death in the family and a house has to be cleaned out, the facility will accept the waste, handle it and process it.
In order to make the public continuously aware of the services the landfill offers, they have held some small promotions as budget allows funded by some of the fees collected, including giving out stickers, pencils, wheel charts, etc. that help to promote the proper storage disposal of household hazardous waste and different materials.
Looking Ahead
Right now, Vandusseldorp says that the landfill’s survival is most important. “We have a life expectancy here of approx 100 to 110 years under our current conditions. I have a great staff here All of us here like to keep things looking nice because we have to look at it everyday. We also try to get compliments from customers who come in and out. When we’ve been mowing and maintaining a clean appearance, you like to hear things like that.” Since the landfill is in a rural area, Vandusseldorp says that they get a lot of wildlife around the facility and it’s one thing that everyone loves to watch, especially when a deer or pheasants run through. He says, “Usually everyone will stop and take a look and I think that it gives them a little bit of an incentive to try to do everything right because they are trying to protect the wildlife as well as the people in the area.”
For more information, contact Rod Vandusseldorp, at (641) 792-3866 or e-mail [email protected].
Sidebar
Every year, the Newton, IA Landfill handles:
50 Ton of Tires
7,000 gallons of oil
300 gallons of antifreeze
5 – 7 tons car batteries
HHW (Satellite with Des Moines metro) – 10,000 – 15,000 lbs
Sidebar
Equipment used:
BOMAG Compactor
CAT D8 Dozer
CAT IT28 Toolcarrier
P39 Sumatzu Dozer
John Deere Tractor Mower