Montgomery County councilmembers continued discussions on the future of the county’s incinerator, where up to 600,000 tons of waste is processed each year.
A proposal to shutter the Montgomery County Resource Recovery Facility in Dickerson several years ago was never implemented, and its use has been extended.
About a year ago, the County agreed to a contract extension, which would have ended in April of 2026. But the contract now runs until 2031 with a clause enabling the County to end it sooner.
Currently, the Council is mulling over whether it is best to send its trash out of state and pay hauling costs, as well as the expense of filling space in a landfill that could be as far as Pennsylvania or Virginia.
In 2020, more than 540,000 tons of waste were burned at Dickerson, according to Councilmember Evan Glass during a briefing by the county’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) staff Tuesday. Each year, about 147,000 tons of food waste alone are burnt at the site, he said.
Currently, 26 percent of garbage burned at the Dickerson facility becomes ash that is transported to Virginia.
Hauling the county’s trash away by truck or rail is preferred by some councilmembers who have called for the Dickerson site to be closed.
But Councilmembers Natali Fani-Gonzáles and Marilyn Balcombe said they would be reluctant to haul trash to another site, particularly to a low-income area that is mainly populated by people of color.
Ensuring that residents of the area where the county trash would be sent have a voice, “will be an important factor for me,” Balcombe said.
“There’s no way we will all agree on dumping our trash somewhere else,” Fani-Gonzáles said. “Montgomery County has this pride of being ahead on climate justice.”
Upgrading the current facility would be more costly than long hauling, noted DEP Director Jon Monger. He went to say that the county needs to keep searching for ways to send less trash to the incinerator and recommends moving away from using the Dickerson facility as soon as possible.
Under the County’s Aiming for Zero Waste Initiative, more food would be composted, and less waste be sent to the landfill.
