Dive Brief:

• A new Summit County, UT, landfill cell planed for construction this summer is expected to cost $1.2 million, and nearby Park City Municipal wants to help pay for it. But there's a catch: In exchange, the county would allow PCM to deposit soils contaminated from the mining process there.
• High costs for dumping these soils are part of what is driving discussion on the matter. The soils currently are sent to a facility in Toole, UT.
• “It could cost you a couple hundred bucks now, so we are working with the city and the EPA to figure out what is the best thing to do with that. We want to figure out a long-term solution,” said Diane Foster, Park City manager.

Dive Insight:

With construction of the new landfill cell in Summit County set to begin this summer, it makes sense to consider how local waste might be accommodated at a local landfill. Customers and municipalities don’t always have this option.

But shipping waste around from one county or region to another has often proven to be unsustainable in the long-term, and can sometimes seem to do more harm than good.