Council reviews large solid-waste fee increases as DEP seeks funds for incinerator repairs and planning for new recycling facility

At a Montgomery County Council work session, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) presented the county executive’s FY26 budget proposals that would raise the county’s solid‑waste service charges to cover short‑term repairs at the Resource Recovery Facility (RRF) and Durwood transfer station and to fund planning and design for a proposed material recycling and biological treatment (MRBT) facility.

The discussion matters because the executive’s package ties large current‑year increases in the Solid Waste Disposal Fund to projects DEP describes as necessary to keep the system operating while the county plans a long‑term alternative to incineration. Staff materials cited example increases that would raise a small‑business disposal charge from $631 to $1,400 and a single‑family household charge from $310 to $419 (about an $85 increase for the latter), and DEP identified a mix of inflation, contract and labor cost increases, $28.5 million in RRF repairs in FY26 and a proposed $12 million‑per‑year CIP amendment for MRBT planning in FY26–28 as drivers of the higher charges.

Council Member Glass, chair of the Transportation and Environment Committee, framed the issue as multiple overlapping items that jointly drive higher rates and said the council needed a full briefing so all 11 members could consider tradeoffs. Glass said the committee had spent time “sorting through what the fee increases mean, where the different funding will go to,” and that the questions cut to “how we collect our trash today, how it gets picked up, sorted, and disposed of, and it has implications for how that is done years into the future.”

John Monger, director of the Department of Environmental Protection, told the council the packet (circle 49) breaks the charge…