After 10 years of careful monitoring, the McLean County Landfill is expected to reach capacity and close Sunday.
Municipal waste collected in McLean County will then be landfilled in Livingston County.
General Manager of Republic Services in West Central Illinois Dan Winters said the landfill will be sealed after capacity is reached.
“It is synthetically capped, basically 3 feet of what we call a vegetative layer of soil that’s put over that synthetic cap,” Winters said. “It’s seeded and maintained for the next 30 years and monitored for the next 30 years for groundwater, gas migration.”
Winters said he does not estimate the cost of waste removal will increase in McLean County, outside of annual inflation adjustments.
“McLean is a rather small site, and we’re going up to what we call a regional site. And those costs are a lot less expensive for disposal, so that kind of offsets the transportation,” Winters said. “That’s why there should not be a significant impact for the people that dispose waste here.”
The transfer station in McLean County will remain open, but all trash collected there will be funneled to Livingston’s landfill.
The expected closure of the landfill was a major consideration during the creation of the county's new 20-year solid waste plan.
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