Summit County officials warn landfill life tight; push to grow recycling, food‑waste pilots

Summit County staff told the county council during a joint meeting with Park City that the county’s primary landfill, 3 Mile Canyon, is nearing its practical limits and that increasing recycling and composting is essential to extend the facility’s lifespan.

“It's a finite space out there. We can't expand forever,” Tim Loveday, a county solid‑waste staff member, said during a presentation. He said bids for a new landfill cell were taken recently and construction on Cell 2 could begin in about a month. County planners estimate the landfill’s design capacity would reach a long‑term limit around 2053 under current assumptions; the county’s built capacity without the new cell would fill much sooner.

The presentation summarized current diversion activity and several pilot programs intended to reduce the volume of material entering the landfill. County curbside service—run under a Republic Services contract—serves about 17,595 homes; county staff reported 2,654 tons of residential recycling last year. At 3 Mile Canyon, total waste disposed in 2024 was reported at 45,899 tons. Using the county’s residential waste and residential recycling figures, staff calculated a residential diversion rate of 26.3%. Measured against the total tonnage disposed at 3 Mile Canyon, the county’s overall diversion rate is about 16.7%, staff said. Those figures exclude many commercial loads because commercial hauler reporting is incomplete.

“The commercial's unknown, and that's really killing us,” Tim Loveday said, describing how backhaul and private contracts leave gaps in county accounting and make an accurate overall diversion rate difficult to calculate.

Park City staff said the city and county are working together on data collection, new drop‑off capacity and local policy changes. “We've done waste characterization studies to understand especially what both the commercial and residential waste streams look like,” a Park City staff member identified only as Luke said. He said the city is preparing a potential waste ordinance and that the two governments have discussed dedicating roughly 4 acres as a joint residential drop‑off site to replace a cramped current location.

Pilot programs and other diversion activities described by staff included: - Food‑waste pilot: Launched in mid‑2024 with support from the Park City Community Foundation (Park City Climate Fund), an opt‑in food composting program had about 780 households signed up and had collected roughly 532 tons of food waste in the program’s early months. County staff said, because wet food weighs less when compared by landfill volume, that diversion equates to roughly 1,100 tons of saved landfill airspace. - Cardboard baling (OCC): A county baler at 3 Mile Canyon recovered 24 tons in the pilot’s first year and 10 tons in the most recent year after staffing setbacks; staff said each ton of cardboard saves about 9 cubic yards of landfill space. - Bulk metal: The county collected about 700 tons of scrap metal in 2024 and received roughly $120 per ton in revenue when sold. - Mattresses: County collection totaled about 1,400 mattresses (approximately 92 tons) across sites including a Henifer pilot. - Tires: The county reported collecting 21 tons of tires in 2024, which are shipped to Liberty Tire in Salt Lake for grinding and reuse. - Electronics and batteries: Electronics collection totaled about 14 tons in 2024; the county reported collecting about 2 tons of 12‑volt lead batteries and smaller quantities of other batteries. Interstate Battery picks up automotive batteries and pays the county for recyclables, staff said. - Refrigeration appliances and refrigerant: Staff said they processed roughly 581 appliances containing refrigerant last year and noted the regulatory and enforcement risks of improper Freon disposal. - Household hazardous waste (HHW): The county reported spending roughly $56,000 on HHW collection and diverting more than 100,000 pounds of hazardous materials in its programs and two Recycle Utah collection days.

County officials stressed that the two largest opportunities to extend landfill life are food waste and green‑waste composting. Loveday said measured tonnage crossing the 3 Mile Canyon scale shows about 23% of disposed tonnage is food waste and about 17% is green/compostable yard waste—together roughly 40% of the tonnage entering the landfill and therefore a high‑priority target for diversion efforts.

Staff also reviewed operational constraints and costs. Loveday said shipping county waste to an out‑of‑county landfill would cost roughly $100 per ton in transport and disposal today. He noted the county inspects incoming loads at the landfill per DEQ requirements and that it is uncommon for curbside recycling to be dumped into the landfill; staff reported two such incidents in 2024, both related to mechanical contamination of a load.

Council members asked about specific options to raise diversion: increasing curbside pickup frequency, expanding the food‑waste pilot toward a county program, adding glass to curbside routes, and neighborhood “locals” parking/drop‑off sites for compost and diversion. Loveday said Republic Services is preparing a pro forma to estimate costs for weekly recycling pickup rather than the current every‑other‑week cadence for many customers, and the county is studying how to scale the food‑waste pilot beyond the opt‑in model.

Council members and staff also discussed future infrastructure: adding transfer‑station capability, siting larger or distributed drop‑off facilities, and the role of better commercial hauler reporting. Park City and county staff said they plan to continue coordination and data collection to support ordinance and contract changes.

County staff emphasized the limits of current county authority and the need for partnerships. Luke described multi‑year coordination with county council liaisons and the city council to assemble land and align policy. Tim Loveday summarized the financial stakes: the county recently received construction bids for a new landfill cell that he said were in the roughly $2.5 million range and that building new cells or shipping waste off‑site would be costly to county finances.

The county and city are continuing to refine targets; staff said reaching a roughly 32% diversion rate is an attainable near‑term goal with investment and infrastructure changes, while a long‑term target near 50% would be far more difficult and costly.

“Food waste is a monster issue,” the Park City staff member Luke said. “We have to view food waste as not a waste but a future resource.”

The council followed with questions but took no formal votes on policy at the meeting. Staff said they will return with cost estimates, a plan for curbside service changes, and further coordination on a possible joint drop‑off site and ordinance language in coming months.