Salt Lake landfills have limited life that recycling could extend

SALT LAKE CITY — Salt Lake Valley's landfills can take in just so much garbage before they have to close. For some that date is decades away, for others it's several years.

But that day can be prolonged — and the added expense to households and business avoided — by recycling and employing new uses for trash, local landfill managers said.

The valley's largest landfill, which handles about 1,500 tons of garbage daily, has about 50 years before it stops accepting trash from households and businesses.

"Salt Lake County does not own any more property in which to put a landfill," said Ashley Yoder, recycling coordinator for the Salt Lake Valley Solid Waste Facility.

The landfill encompasses about 550 acres at 6030 W. California Ave.

When the landfill closes the cost of hauling trash could soar 10 times, Yoder estimated.

The average household living in unincorporated Salt Lake County pays $334 a year for trash removal, Yoder said. In Salt Lake City, a resident pays about $200 a year.

Much of the cost increase would be in shipping trash outside of the valley.

"That means we end up paying transportation costs and increased fees because these regional landfills will most likely be owned by private contractors," Yoder said.

Smaller landfills face the same fate — even sooner.

The Trans-Jordan Cities landfill takes in trash from the seven most southern cities in the valley, Draper, Sandy, South and West Jordan, Riverton, Midvale and Murray.

Dwayne Woolley with Trans-Jordan says each valley resident throws out 4 to 5 pounds of trash a day, and his landfill boasts some of the cheapest rates in the country, at around $10 a month.

But it won't last forever. He estimates the landfill's life at 17-20 years.

"The rates will go up when the landfill closes, " Woolley admits, as much as three to four times.

He said when the Trans-Jordan landfill reaches capacity it will look at the cheapest option to get rid of trash, whether shipping it to other landfills in the state or to the Salt Lake Valley landfill.

"We would then become the closest landfill for them. That would mean our tonnage could potentially double," Yoder said.

Both Yoder and Woolley agree one way to prolong the life of landfills is recycling.