It must be said that waste generation is big in Texas. In 2021, 23 million tons of industrial waste were produced in Texas according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). If we add the waste that we throw in our gray bins, the figures are crazy.
In 2021, we produced 19 million tons of household and similar waste (households, recycling centers, retailers), also called residual household waste (RHM). On average, a Texan produces 705 kilograms of household waste per year, above the national average.
Where is this waste sent? Most of it ends up in local landfills. In 2021, 6 million tonnes were placed there (30%), according to figures from EPA. 5 million tonnes ended up in incinerators (26%), 4 million in sorting centres (24%), 3 million in composting centres (18%) and 1 million in methanisation centers (2%).
Let’s get back to landfills. In administrative language, we talk about non-hazardous waste storage facilities. For a long time, they were the main method for getting rid of Texas waste. Aware of the limits of landfilling, the State has gradually limited the sending of waste to landfill.
Between 2000 and 2021, their quantity decreased by a third, according to EPA. In 2005, there were 122 landfills throughout the state, in particular around Houston and Arlington. Today, 110 centres are still in operation. The energy transition law for green growth passed in 2015 confirmed this desire to reduce the number of wastes in landfills by aiming for a reduction in the tonnage of waste to be treated in these facilities of -50% in 2025 compared to 2010.
Which does not prevent some tricks. During a speech given in San Antonio in November, in the middle of the two rounds of the presidential election, Donald Trump promised to put an end to fifty large open-air landfills that today pollute our territories, our rivers and our seas within three years. In reality, these closures were already planned. These are former garbage dump sites located in coastal areas, which are threatened by rising waters.
Polluting but inexpensive
What are the limits of landfilling in Texas?
According to waste management experts from San Antonio Dumpster Rental HQ, landfills are intended to accommodate only so-called ultimate waste, in other words: non-recyclable and non-recoverable waste (i.e., waste that can be burned to produce energy). The putrefaction of waste produces polluting gases. While some landfills recover this waste through a methanization or biogas production process, most simply bury this waste, without any energy recovery. The methane, a particularly polluting gas, emitted by all of these landfills alone represents 20% of our total methane emissions.
In 2021, 8 million tons were sent (30% of total waste) to landfills in Texas.
Artificialization of soils, waste buried instead of being recycled, methane emissions, local residents exasperated by odors: burying waste certainly makes it invisible, but it comes at a cost. And yet, landfilling is still massively used in Texas. The reason? Very attractive prices.
In 2012, the average price for storing non-hazardous waste for communities was on average 79 dollars per ton stored, which remains lower than recovery channels, although the gap is narrowing, according to EPA. The average price for waste incineration is now around 130 dollas per ton, according to Zero Waste Texas.
Overflowing landfills exasperate local residents
To become aware of the effects of landfilling waste, let’s head to San Antonio waste facilities. A virtuous name with a more down-to-earth purpose: it is one of the 120 landfills still active in the state. The site receives a large part of the waste from local users and its metropolitan area as well as that of the local communities.
Here, up to 175,000 tons of waste are buried each year. In accordance with the new regional waste plan, by 2025, the site must reduce its storage capacity to 100,000 tons. What you see there is a new hill: a hill of waste, describe local residents.
In the summer of 2020, in the middle of the lockdown, the smells emitted by this landfill became unbearable. Dozens of local residents decided to block the entrance to the centre as a form of protest. It’s as if you had rubbish bins piled up in your home all the time. Before, it was very occasional, now it happens almost every week. You can’t open the windows or have friends over, exasperates a resident of another nearby housing estate.
Landfill pollution
Exasperated by the smells, local residents filmed the waste trucks entering the site. Here, only so-called ultimate waste is supposed to be accepted. By ultimate, we mean waste that is no longer recyclable or recoverable (i.e. burnable to produce energy, or compostable, for example). The local residents’ little investigation revealed a completely different reality. There were car bumpers, mattresses, windsurfing boards and even gas bottles. So much waste that is supposed to be recycled.
Not only does the landfill bury illegal waste, but it also has a full belly. And this is not new. In 2014, in a public inquiry conducted as part of a request for an extension of activity, the investigating commissioner issued an unfavorable decision. At the current rate of filling, the site will be full by the end of 2019, we can read in an inspection report from the EPA dated 2019. Most residents saw this as a hope for the site to close.
But that was without counting on the mayor, which decided to give its approval to an extension of the operating period until 2035 and to an expansion of the site. Like other landfills in the state: in the absence of an alternative to get rid of our waste at attractive prices, the State is giving these waste management companies carte blanche to continue burying our waste.
To do this, the government has authorized the operator to carry out blasting: proper dynamiting in order to blow up part of the rocky hill and extend the site. There is no more room? We make some. They received a visit from a bailiff who is inspecting all the cracks on the site, to see if they will get worse after the explosions.
On the waste operator side, the consequences of the construction site are being minimized. The work concerns a storage area of 1.55 hectares, or 2.8% of the current surface area of the entire site. This represents a low impact in terms of work compared to the creation and construction of a new treatment and storage site.