The Middle Point landfill has filled up fast, and County leaders began talks of what to do after the landfill reaches capacity.
A total of 16 counties in middle Tennessee truck their trash to the landfill in Rutherford County.
The county wanted to hire a landfill consultant for about $300,000 to figure out what to do. While that amount may sound like a lot of money, city and county leaders said it was nothing compared to what it could cost taxpayers if they didn't plan ahead.
“We're going to have to figure out a way to deal with our trash in the not too distant future,” said Jeff Davidson, deputy mayor of Rutherford County.
Davidson said the Middle Point Landfill -- which some neighbors have dubbed Mount Trashmore -- will reach capacity about eight years.
At that point, the county will have to get rid of their trash in a different way -- possibly trucking it out to different landfills.
Yet, Davidson said eight years from now, several other nearby landfills are also going to be close to filling up.
That means every truckload of trash sent somewhere else will likely have to pay high fees for each load, called tipping fees, which would likely be passed on to taxpayers and those who use trash services.
To minimize that cost, county officials have begun trying to get people in the habit of recycling now. They said if more people get used to doing it, it will save money for everyone when the Middle Point Landfill closes.
“We want to make sure the only thing we're trucking -- paying additional transportation costs, fuel costs and maintenance costs for -- is the trash we have to dispose of,” Davidson said. Anything else that can be recycled, we want to be sure it's pulled out of the municipal waste stream and sold as a commodity.”
The deputy mayor said he worries with how quickly middle Tennessee is growing, the landfill could fill up even quicker than in 8 years.
