At Boone County Landfill & Recycling, several garbage trucks lined up in front of the scale house to be weighed.
Administrator John Roosa explained the primary service area includes all of Boone County, most of Greene County and half a dozen towns in other central Iowa counties. Story County, the facility’s secondary service area, contributes over half of the daily tonnage.
Roosa drove to the top of the landfill as a truck tipped its roll-off dumpster. A bright red snare drum spilled out with the load.
“It’s probably still in good condition. It’s mind boggling the stuff people throw away sometimes,” Roosa said, adding that his crew has pulled out working generators and two-by-fours to reuse in their shops.
The drum, along with a ladder and wooden shelves, were quickly crushed by a compactor’s massive steel wheels.
Air space is precious here, even though the area that can hold waste is roughly the size of five or six Jack Trice Stadiums, based on Roosa’s calculations.
“We are running out of room, and it’s not just the Boone County Landfill,” Roosa said. “It’s starting to become a problem throughout the state.”
The Iowa Society of Solid Waste Operations (ISOSWO) sent a survey about landfill capacity to all 37 active locations in the state last year. Nearly one-third of the respondents said their landfills had fewer than 30 years left under their current permits.
Some, like the Wayne-Ringgold-Decatur County Sanitary Landfill in southern Iowa, have large properties and plan to build more cells to hold future waste. But others, including the Boone County Landfill, are essentially landlocked and quickly filling in the space they have.
ISOSWO President Garrett Prestegard said expansion also depends on the site’s geology and hydrology, along with permits and clearances at the federal, state and local levels.
Building a new landfill is even harder, Prestegard said. The last one that opened in Iowa was 30 years ago near Davenport.
“As landfilling options continue to decrease over time, it's likely going to lead to waste in the state being funneled to either out-of-state landfills or larger landfills in Iowa that have room to expand their facilities in the future,” Prestegard said.
Prestegard hopes the landfill capacity survey will spark discussions around future regional agreements and policies to reduce waste.
The Mahaska County Sanitary Landfill is looking at the possibility of expanding with neighboring properties, according to Manager Joe Farris. He added that abandoned, underground coal mines in the area limit where new cells could be built. The Wayne-Ringgold-Decatur County Sanitary Landfill and North Central Iowa Regional Sanitary Landfill recently built more cells and own land to continue expanding in the future. The Cedar Rapids/Linn County Solid Waste Agency is trying to get a settlement agreement with the City of Marion to expand.
Landfill lifespans cut short
Some landfills that expected to have more time have had their lifespans cut short by wreckage from natural disasters.
Joe Horaney, interim director of the Cedar Rapids/Linn County Solid Waste Agency, said the landfill near Marion absorbed more waste after historic flooding in 2008, a derecho in 2020 and a big hailstorm the same year.
“More than 80,000 roofs had to be replaced here in eastern Iowa,” Horaney said. “Every time there's a hail event, all that material ends up in the landfill.”
Rebuilding after each natural disaster produces a second wave of waste, he said.
Horaney said the landfill in Linn County could fill up in 2036, eight years earlier than the original projections. A proposed expansion may buy more time, but when the landfill reaches its capacity limit, Horaney said the agency will turn the site into a transfer station.
“Garbage would still come here, but instead of being landfilled, we’d put it into open top [semi-trucks], and then we would send it out to a location that has space, be that a landfill or if there's an alternative technology that can handle it, we would send it there,” Horaney said.
He added that there are no parcels of land left in the county to build a new “apples-to-apples” facility like the current one.
While transferring waste is the cheapest option after landfilling, Horaney said hauling waste longer distances could double the tipping fees. Those costs would trickle down to customers.
“We like to remind folks we don't make garbage out here,” Horaney said. “We're handling the garbage that's generated by the 235,000 people that live in Linn County.”
Big changes in Ames
Roosa said the Boone County Landfill was on track to fill up in 14 years if it continued to absorb nearly 100,000 tons of waste each year. But it may be able to push that timeline to 35 years when it stops accepting waste from Ames and Story County.
That change goes into effect in July 2027.
Ames is planning to send the trash it collects even further west to a landfill in Carroll County. City officials said it coincides with other big changes in waste management.
Mark Peebler, supervisor of the Arnold O. Chantland Resource Recovery Plant, walked into a cavernous building with pipes and metal catwalks snaking through the space.
He explained how the plant uses conveyor belts, shredders and magnets to pull out metals, which are recycled, and convert burnable trash into fuel for the city’s power plant. The remaining waste is trucked to the landfill.
The facility was considered state-of-the-art when it opened in 1975. But five decades later, the city is retiring the Resource Recovery Plant due to new regulations, higher operating costs and aging equipment.
Peebler said other changes have made the waste-to-energy process less efficient. The waste stream used to have more paper. Now, plastics represent a larger share. They produce hydrochloric acid in the boiler tubes, which leads to more corrosion.
“Once those burst or blow, then they've got to take the unit offline and then replace those boiler tubes,” Peebler said. “Today is a good example of that.”
He pointed to a mound of trash that had accumulated on the tipping floor while the system was being repaired.
Ames plans to retire the plant next year and open a new facility ahead of the switch to the Carroll County landfill. The Resource Recovery and Recycling Campus (R3C) will act as the central hub for collecting and transferring trash, recycling and yard waste.
To reduce how much is trucked to the landfill, the city is also rolling out a new curbside recycling program. Service begins the first week of July.
“We've done a lot of different studies and research of other communities to see how they are able to attain or achieve their goals for recycling, and curbside recycling has the highest percentage rates and diversion from the landfill,” Peebler said.
Currently, residents can take glass and cardboard to recycling bins around the city or a larger drop-off site at the Resource Recovery Plant, which also takes plastic, paper, metals, textiles and hazardous household materials.
Peebler said those services will continue. But single-stream, curbside recycling is expected to boost participation because it’s more convenient for residents.
“Every ton that we keep out of the solid waste program, it's less that we have to pay for transportation, less that we have to pay for disposal at the landfill, and it’s less than we have to pay in DNR tonnage fees,” Peebler said.
Peebler said the new recycling program builds on other efforts in recent years to divert materials from the waste stream.
This includes a composting food waste program and events like the Great Pumpkin Disposal. Residents drop off jack-o-lanterns, corn stalks and other biodegradable decorations to be composted or fed to livestock on nearby farms.
Organic materials produce methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change when they break down in a landfill without oxygen.
Ames, Iowa State University and several nonprofit organizations also organize Rummage RAMPage, a second-hand sale for furniture and housewares when leases typically end in late July.
Still, more could be done, Peebler said.
“There is a lot of material that could be reused, reduced, recycled and recovered before it goes to the landfill that may not be happening as much as what it should be,” Peebler said.
Over 70% of the material in Iowa landfills is divertible, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources’ Landfill Material Analysis.
Roosa sees this first-hand at the Boone County Landfill.
“It’s hard to teach people to care. But hopefully they do,” Roosa said. “We’ve got to do something different.”
Roosa said all landfills run out of space, eventually, and that’s a problem for everyone.
