Spotlight on Wayne County Solid Waste

The mission of Wayne County Solid Waste is to divert materials from the landfill, conserve natural resources, and contribute to the growing markets of reclaimed materials. The landfill crisis in middle Tennessee is real and Wayne County is doing their part to slow down how fast the landfills are reaching capacity. The Wayne County Solid Waste facility is a county-owned facility located at 412 Hog Creek Road in Waynesboro. It is three county operations under one roof. It serves as a convenience center, which is required by state law, for county residents to dispose of their household waste and recyclables, a recycling center, where recyclable material is baled and sold to save the county money on disposal rates and generate income for the solid waste budget, and a transfer station. A transfer station is not a required county operation. State law does not mandate that a county pays for commercial waste. A transfer station is an easier way for businesses and private collection companies to transfer their material to a landfill for permanent disposal. Most of the counties in Tennessee that own a transfer station charge a fee, called a tipping fee, to commercial haulers and businesses that utilize their transfer station. Wayne County does not charge a tipping fee. Commercial haulers and businesses utilize the Wayne County Transfer station free of any fees, unless the material contains tires or construction material. If your garbage is picked up by a private collection company, the fee you pay is for collection only. The county does not get any of that fee and is not charging the company to utilize the transfer station. The Wayne County Solid Waste facility receives 18-20 garbage truck loads of solid waste from private collection companies per week. These trucks contain residential and commercial waste and weigh 10,000- 20,000 pounds per truck. In January 2025, employees at the Wayne County Solid Waste facility performed waste screens and processed over 1,200,000 pounds of garbage that the county paid for primarily from property tax revenue. In 2024, the Wayne County Solid Waste facility received over 15,116,000 pounds of material. Wayne County is the only county in Tennessee that pays for the disposal of state and privately operated prisons, which do not pay county property taxes to contribute to what pays for the disposal of garbage at these facilities. Funding solid waste operations primarily from property tax dollars is not the only way to fund the program. Different funding options have been presented to the commission. The proposal that was presented last month at the commission meeting is another possibility for funding. No option has been voted on by the commission. The goal of all funding options is to decrease the amount of property tax going to fund solid waste.

The solid waste facility has strict state and federal regulations that the county must follow to stay in compliance. All of the waste received must be screened to ensure that nothing is in the waste that is prohibited from the landfill. Failure to properly remove prohibited items will result in increased fees at the landfill.

Recycling is just one part of the integrated system that composes Solid Waste Management. State law requires Wayne County to decrease their total yearly waste by 25%. We accomplish this with our award-winning recycling program. In 2023-2024, we recycled about 1 million 600 thousand pounds of recyclables, which saved the county over $56,000.00 in disposal fees and generated over $86,000.00 in revenue for Wayne County. We offer curbside recycling in all three cities, recycling drop-off location on Hog Creek Road, and our 16 mobile convenience centers. We also have a program that will pick up items at your residence. We can accomplish all of the above duties with eight full-time and five part-time employees. There are only two part-time employees whose only duty is either picking up recyclables or sorting recyclables. Their combined annual salary is less than $20,000.00. All other employees are cross-trained to do everything required at the solid waste facility.

If a natural disaster occurs in the county, the disposal cost of the cleanup also comes out of the solid waste budget. Last year, approximately $170,000.00 was spent from the solid waste budget to clean up after the tornado that affected the county. The employees at Wayne County Solid Waste strive to decrease the amount of money that must be spent to landfill or bury waste, and will continue to do that every day.---Submitted by Alvin Creecy, 7th District Wayne County Commissioner