Summit County’s landfill in Three Mile Canyon near Rockport State Park processes about 42,000 to 52,000 tons of waste yearly.
“Right now we have somewhere around 80,000 tons capacity left,” Solid Waste Superintendent Tim Loveday said. “So if we really push it, we can go probably 18 months.”
Loveday said the county is planning to expand the landfill next year, extending its life by another 17 years. There’s room for two more expansions after that.
Meanwhile, as much as 80% of the waste going to Three Mile Canyon could be recycled or composted. Loveday says half of that is relatively easy to divert, too.
“If the diversion programs work, and we can divert 40%, then we essentially added 40% of life into the landfill,” he said.
One of the prime targets is cardboard. Loveday says it’s more valuable compared to other recyclables.
Three Mile Landfill can pull it out of the trash, ship it elsewhere for recycling and still make money. Even on a bad year, Loveday said, the landfill breaks even on shipping out its cardboard.
“With each load of cardboard that goes out, we save about $5,000 worth of air space in the landfill,” he said.
The landfill’s biggest ally in diverting cardboard has been Recycle Utah. Loveday says even more could be diverted after the recycling center finds a new larger location.
Other partners include Republic Services and composting company Spoil to Soil. Together with the county, they’re asking Snyderville Basin residents to consider signing up for a yard waste composting program.
If 3,500 households opt-in, the program could launch in time for next year’s spring cleaning.
Loveday mentioned that Spoil to Soil has its own food waste program too. Residents can pay to have their food waste picked up and taken to a composting facility in Browns Canyon.
“That kicked off on the first of June, and they're off to the races and running,” Loveday said.
And, Summit County’s former woodchipping program could return. Eastside residents like Michael Jones, who lives in Weber Canyon, used to be able to set up appointments for the service.
“We’d leave it on our properties as mulch; some people would use it in their gardens; or some people just let it compost back into the soil,” Jones said. “So it was a really good program.”
Since the program stopped during the COVID-19 pandemic, Jones said people began taking trailers of tree limbs and branches directly to the landfill.
County Fire Warden Bryce Boyer said the issue was, and still is, staffing. Neither the public works division nor the fire warden’s office had the people to operate the woodchipper.
The county also loaned it to the Park City Fire District this year after the fire district’s broke.
Boyer said he hopes to reintroduce the countywide chipping program next summer. He said anyone interested in a summer job should look on the county’s website next February or March.
