The state can’t recycle its way out of a solution. The options are slim: expand the current landfill build a new facility or pay to ship the waste out of state. The Central Landfill is expected to reach capacity sometime in the next two decades - the current date based on the facility’s intake is 2040 - and there’s been little action toward a solution from state leadership. Tiverton’s and other pre-existing landfills were grandfathered in, but its permit for DEM has since expired.īut like so many other states and countries in the world, Rhode Island is running out of room to bury its trash. Rhode Island used to have dozens of local and municipally owned landfills, but with the creation of the Resource Recovery Corporation and mandatory diversion rates in the 1970s and ’80s, towns started consolidating waste disposal to Johnston’s facilities by state law. “This is uncharted territory, but we’re going to pay the same rate as every other municipality, but the total tonnage is not known at this time as we’ve only been able to estimate it,” Rogers said. In comparison, the previous costs to the program were about $800,000. The new recycling facility will cost $750,000, which will be paid for from casino revenue and industrial park infrastructure funds. Town officials estimate the total cost of waste management will be about $1.5 million and increase annually based on Resource Recovery’s fee schedule. In a 2019 report filed with DEM, the town estimated it buried 5,700 tons of municipal solid waste in its 33-acre landfill that year, and produced another 2,031 tons of recycled material. “Those two costs combined are anticipated to be more than what it cost to run our current one,” said Richard Rogers, director of Tiverton Public Works. The increased costs of waste disposal after the landfill’s closure remain unclear Tiverton will end up paying for the transportation of the waste and the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation’s municipal tipping fees, but there’s little available data on how much waste the town’s 7,000 households that receive curbside pickup produce. Tiverton had already been sending its recycling material to the Central Landfill in Johnston for several years, but its transfer station closed with the town landfill. The town opened a temporary recycling facility in December on Progress Road to help sort recyclable materials before they are shipped to the materials recycling facility at the Central Landfill in Johnston. Town officials cited the then-ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the recent opening of Bally’s Tiverton Casino as prime reasons behind the extensions. The Tiverton Landfill, a leftover from a time when towns owned and operated their own dumps, was originally supposed to be closed and capped starting in November 2020, but the town received an extension from the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM). After a two-year delay, an era ended last month as town officials closed the last municipally owned landfill in Rhode Island.
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