Green River's landfill will close in 2017

Green River will soon be without a garbage landfill.

Green River’s landfill will close in 2017, but not before the city’s garbage transfer station is built by late 2016. The transfer station will be used as a holding facility for Green River’s residents garbage before transporting it to the Solid Waste District No. 1 landfill, near Rock Springs.

Meaning, Green River residents will still have a location to take their garbage to in town. Residents will not have to travel, but their garbage will.

The transfer station will be built where the current entrance and scale house for the landfill is now, at the bottom of South Hill. There will also be recycling bins at the transfer station. Recycling available is cardboard, metal, plastics, aluminum, newspaper, and mixed paper.

“There’s going to be a lot of recycling operations from that building,” Mike Nelson, Director of Public Works said

“We look at it as, every pound that we can recycle is a pound less that we have to transfer and pay for in garbage.”

The transfer station will be an extensive endeavor, accommodating garbage and recycling alike, and will cost $1.5 million to construct. The necessary procedures for the closure of the landfill will cost roughly $3.5 million.

All costs considered, the closure is still more economically feasible than continuing with the current landfill. Landfills’ lifespans are about 20 years and Green River’s landfill is 30 years old.

Nelson said the reason for the landfill closure is the expense of its operation.

“Where we are putting garbage now, we’ve got to remove nearly solid rock,” he said. “(We) take the rock out, to put the garbage in, to put the dirt and material back on top of it. It’s a very expensive operation.”

The landfill’s closure was set in 2009.

The closure was planned after an extensive study concerning all garbage landfills in southwest Wyoming, which started in 2006 and was completed in 2009.

The study, which was part of the state’s Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan, evaluated the most economical strategies for the state’s landfills for the next 20 years.

“This thing has been in the works for a long time,” Nelson said. “The time to implement is now.”