Butler County weighs new landfill cover material as prison mattress recycling ends

Butler County Director of Public Works Curtis Mater told the Board of County Commissioners that the county is negotiating a contract to accept a shredded byproduct from vehicle recycling as partial landfill cover while the state prison mattress-recycling program is ending Oct. 1, creating an immediate disposal gap.

The shift matters because under Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) rules the shredded auto byproduct can be used for up to half of required cover but must still be topped with soil; county staff said accepting the material could reduce hauling and produce modest revenue. At the same time, Helping Hands, which uses inmate labor at Hutchinson and El Dorado correctional facilities to strip and recycle mattresses, has been told by the prison system it must stop that operation by Oct. 1, leaving the county without its current mattress-processing outlet.

Mater said All Metal Recycling produces a ground remainder after steel is removed from crushed vehicles and that Waste Connections and other regional facilities previously accepted that byproduct but stopped after ownership changes. "We can use this material for half of our cover, but we still have to top it with soil," Mater said. He said the county currently charges $4 per ton for coke material from a refinery and plans to negotiate a higher rate for the auto-processing byproduct; he suggested a likely market rate of about $20–$25 per ton.

On mattresses, Mater said Helping Hands charges the county $12 per mattress and uses inmate labor at state facilities for disassembly and recycling. He said county staff were told by corrections leadership that the prison-run program will cease by Oct. 1 and that the county must now find alternatives because "we cannot put [mattresses] in the landfill" without damaging equipment and using limited cover space. Mater said staff have contacted state representatives and the Department of Corrections to request more information and explore options such as relocating processing to a separate site, partnering regionally to buy a mobile grinder, or working with KDHE on a consolidated solution.

Staff provided several quantitative points to commissioners: the vehicle-recycling byproduct stream had at times exceeded 100–200 tons per day in the prior arrangement (staff noted memories of higher estimates and said exact daily amounts were not finalized), the Helping Hands program processes on the order of tens of thousands of mattresses annually (staff cited about 30,000 per year from the current operator), and a commercial mattress grinding machine would likely cost more than $1 million and therefore would require a multi-county or regional business model to be feasible.

Commissioners asked questions about logistics, whether grinders are portable (Mater: "Yes. They are. They're on a semi, so they can go from site to site."), and how bed-bug concerns factor into acceptance. Mater said Helping Hands currently removes fabric and foam and recovers steel and fiber, and that the prison-based model has made the service relatively inexpensive. He said staff will continue outreach to other counties, KDHE, and the Department of Corrections and will return to the commission with proposed contract terms or options.

If no replacement solution is found, Mater warned the county may need to consider options that would increase local disposal costs or leave mattresses exposed in the environment. He recommended a regional approach to purchasing or contracting for grinding equipment and asked permission to continue negotiations and develop contract language for commissioners to review.

Commissioners did not take a formal vote on a contract at the meeting; Mater said he will bring back contract details and recommended rates for approval when negotiations are sufficiently advanced.