SC landfill making expansion plans

Administrators in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, are reportedly preparing an expansion plan for the county’s landfill near the town of Wellford.

An online article on the GoUpstate.com website quotes the director and a manager of the county’s Solid Waste Department as saying its plans call for a $2.8 million expansion that will occur over five phases.

The county is working from the premise that the Spartanburg area’s population will increase by 11 percent through 2030, and they say the expansion project will extend the landfill’s life by an additional 25 years.

Spartanburg County Solid Waste Manager Kevin Farmer is quoted as saying the expansion in 2018 will consist of 35 to 40 acres and that a new landfill cell will be constructed every five years thereafter.

GoUpstate.com says the Wellford Landfill Facility opened in 1977 and currently sits on a 420-acre parcel of land. Its intake of municipal solid waste (MSW) rose from 126,000 tons in 2015 to 144,000 tons in 2016, an increase of more than 14 percent.

The county officials say Spartanburg County’s recycling volumes also are increasing. In its most recently completed fiscal year the 7,500 tons recycled represented a 7 percent increase over the 7,000 tons recycled the prior fiscal year.

Some of the most commonly recycled items at the county’s 17 drop-off sites and through three curbside programs in the country are: paper and cardboard, at 2,900 tons; metal, at 1,700 tons; and scrap tires, at just under 1,000 tons.