Sometimes Trash Is Economic Development

About 20 years ago there was a battle in West Virginia over out-of-state trash. A large landfill was proposed for McDowell County, one of the poorest and least populated counties in WV. A large number of well-meaning people lobbied in favor of limits on landfill size, to prevent WV from becoming "the dumping ground of the East." I remember sending a letter to my bishop, the head of the WV Council of Churches, one of the anti-landfill interests, pointing out that the liners and other environmental protections that are mandated for today's landfills are expensive and require enough garbage disposal fees, called "tipping fees," to make them economically viable. I also pointed out that other states were taking our hazardous waste, since we didn't have a hazardous waste disposal site, a fact that didn't seem hypocritical to anyone. I never got a satisfactory response.

Garbage disposal is a potentially significant money maker for localities that are willing to offer disposal sites. A large percentage of the tipping fee consists of taxes that finance state and local programs. As this article from the Oregonian points out, waste disposal can be a source of revenue for counties that have land, and perhaps little else, to offer. Taxes and fees, as well as income for workers and suppliers, can be significant. A plant that is built to treat leachate from a landfill can be used to treat sewage from local communities. Methane generated by the garbage can be sold. And I have often suspected that the resources in large landfills will someday be valuable enough to go back and mine for things such as cellulosic material and metals.

Until everything can be recycled, there is a need for places to put our refuse. Providing a place for that disposal is not something we should reject out of hand.