County Council Deliberates on Trash Overhaul Plan
Updated July 31, 2026
The Montgomery County Council on July 28 held a two-hour meeting on plans to overhaul the way the County disposes of its trash.
The session was the first in a series of sessions that will result in a decision in October or November on whether to close the County’s aging trash incinerator in 2027 and pivot to trucking the County’s trash to landfills, as the vast majority of cities and counties in the U.S. do.
The County Executive, Marc Elrich, proposed such a plan earlier this year—after 2 years of study and analysis by the County’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). But Council President Natali Fani-Gonzalez put it on hold; she alleged that the plan was incomplete and raised too many questions that had not yet been answered. She called for more “independent” information and posed dozens of questions to DEP.
SCA strongly supports the main thrust of DEP’s and Mr. Elrich’s plans to make the transition to truck hauling, landfill, and shuttering the Dickerson incinerator. Moreover, we believe DEP has addressed most of the key issues in play, and presented data and analysis that goes a long way to presenting a compelling case.
At the same time, we appreciate that the Council’s dialogue on this complex issue—with a once-in-a-generation decision to be made—has surfaced issues that Council members need to understand more fully.
Two big problems have occurred as this debate has played out over the past year:
A series of studies commissioned by or done by DEP have presented some conflicting information on the pros and cons of burning vs burying trash, and
Ms. Fani-Gonzalez (intentionally or unintentionally) undercut faith in DEP as a reliable source of information on the transition.
Earlier this year, she asked Council staff to take a fresh look at the research and the DEP plan. On July 28, staff presented their perspective. A written version of that was made available prior to the session. SCA combed through the document and wrote a four-page memo responding to its content.
The Council’s next meetings on this issue will be in September. And Council President Fani-Gonzalez has now committed to multiple sessions. However, it is still not clear that the Council can and will actually reach a decision in late October and or early November. Some Council members have said they are committed to that goal so that the current Council will be the one making the decision and not the next Council, which takes office on Dec 7 (along with a new County Executive) after this year’s elections.
Other Council members have not as yet committed to making the waste overhaul decision by November. The concern there is this: If the decision is not forthcoming and steps put in motion, DEP will be compelled to seek new Requests for Proposals (RFPs) from trash vendors and renegotiate contracts. That would almost certainly cost more money and cause delays that could go well into 2027, stalling efforts once again to get this major county responsibility resolved. (Also, the County must give Reworld, the private company that operates the incinerator, six-month’s notice that the facility is to be shut down.)
BACKGROUND & CONTEXT
The core of DEP’s plan is simple: over a period of six to nine months Montgomery County would stop burning its non-recyclable trash (~ 600,000 tons a year) and instead truck that trash to out of state landfills that meet a host of environmental and safety requirements.
The actual hauling would be done by a private waste management company. DEP put out an RFP from such companies in September 2025; it received several replies in November 2025. The details of those replies are not public since assessment of them is protected under the County’s purchasing and contracting rules. (Nevertheless, several Council members asked again at the July 28 session if some way can be found around those rules, especially with regard to the actual out-of-state landfills that may be used.).
DEP presented summaries and key option points to Council members and the public at a series of open houses this past Spring.
It is worth reiterating here that truck hauling of trash to the nation’s roughly 3,000 landfills is by far the most common waste management system in the U.S. It accounts for the disposal of 65% of trash after recyclable and compostable material is diverted from the “waste stream.” The technology has vastly improved over the past decade, by all accounts, though landfills differ from one another in how they operate and how environmentally fortified they are.
WHY DOES THE INCINERATOR NEED TO BE CLOSED?
Quite simply: because it’s the largest single source of pollution—including climate-altering greenhouse gases—in the county and has been for years. Also, because:
Montgomery County for decades has been dumping 150,000 tons the toxic ash from the incinerator on a majority Black community in Virginia—putting them at far greater risk than if we landfilled our unburned trash in one of the vetted landfills the County has chosen.
The trash incinerator is 30 years old and has begun to require costly maintenance; most incinerators are shuttered after about 25 years. And most have been shut down nationwide over the last three decades with only one new one built.
Estimates range up to $300 million dollars on capital improvements and maintenance to keep the incinerator safely and efficiently running for another 7 to 10 years.
Serious problems have recently occurred. In September 2025, an annual emissions test revealed that the incinerator had been emitting nearly double the permitted limit—and 21 times more than in tests a year ago—of the deadliest chemicals known to science, dioxin and furans. In December, a second breakdown occurred, releasing 50 times the already toxic emissions. There’s no safe emissions limit established for these chemicals. (See links below to our press releases on this issue.)
WHAT IS ADVANCED WASTE PROCESSING (AWP) AND WHEN CAN IT BE DEPLOYED?
Aside from issues of cost, logistics, and choosing a trash transport company, no other issue looms as large as whether new recycling and waste management technology could be and should be deployed before transitioning to truck-haul-to-landfill, or after a truck haul program is put in place and the incinerator is shuttered.
The objective of AWP is to meaningfully reduce the waste stream, no matter whether its burned or buried. (Though, with truck haul the incentive to reduce the amount of waste is much stronger because cost is per ton while no such arrangement exists with the incinerator; same cost no matter the volume of trash. )
The timing issue here is critical because, depending on the technologies chosen, AWP techniques could take years to implement, and decisions about costly equipment will be necessary. If the Council chooses to do AWP in advance, that would delay truck haul and closing the incinerator.
SCA has taken a clear position on this issue, and DEP leans in this direction, too: AWP should not be done in advance but phased in after landfill hauling has begun. DEP has issued an RFP to AWP companies with replies expected in September.
FOOD SCRAPS
Food scraps and other organic material (like paper products) comprise about 20% of the current volume of our county’s waste. Several Council members on July 28 reiterated their strong support for a robust program to divert food scraps from the waste stream. Others expressed skepticism that a curbside pick-up program could be easily or rapidly implemented. A pilot program run by the county has existed for years.
But the main debate over such a program is where it will be sited. Where would the food scraps be sent and processed? In 2025, the Council allocated $28 million to DEP (over multiple years) to study and then initiate this program. The aim is to have an expanded program substantially up and running in 2029.
DEP’s analysis has concluded that the least costly and most efficient site is for food scraps to go to the County’s yard trim compost facility in Dickerson, which would be expanded and retooled to accept them and mix that material with yard trim. Such programs exist elsewhere and are successful, though varying technologies come into play.
SCA plays a pivotal role in decisions about the expansion of the 100-acre yard trim facility.
Owing to past County infractions at the Dickerson industrial site, we have a legal agreement with the county around the scope and various operations of the facility. The county needs our approval to expand it.
We have been in discussions with DEP officials for over a year on how this might proceed, as DEP has studied the issue. One concrete outcome to date: DEP now concurs with SCA’s position that the incinerator must be closed before SCA agrees to the food scrap program and expansion—subject also to a range of details about how the expansion would occur and with what restrictions and guardrails to protect the environment and community.
Several Council members, however, raised questions about the compost facility expansion, and especially whether it would be better sited elsewhere and perhaps decentralized. DEP officials stated their position that any of that would cost more money and not take advantage of the known and quantifiable advantages of an existing facility that has been operating well for decades.
OTHER PIECES OF THE PUZZLE
Two other pieces of the waste puzzle are also widely supported: (a) recycling so-called “C&D” (construction and demolition) materials in lieu of burning or burying them, and (b) “Save-As-You-Throw”—a payment plan that would allow residents to recycle as much as they want and pay a variable amount based on the volume of actual trash they generate, much the way we now pay for our electricity usage. DEP is currently conducting a pilot for this program as well.
OUR POSITION
The Council should adhere to a three-month time limit on the decision on waste management.
The Council should vote to transition to trash truck hauling starting in early 2027.
The incinerator should be shuttered for good by June 2027.
AWP should come after landfill hauling is initiated.
These actions will dramatically reduce the harmful emissions released in our air and the risk of contamination from future breakdowns at the facility. It will also end the shameful 30-year practice of dumping the toxic ash the incinerator produces (after burning) on a minority community in Virginia.
ADDITIONAL FACTS
SCA vetted 42 landfills in the region with strict environmental justice (EJ) criteria and found many that have minimal impact on both the nearby population and the surrounding environment. The DEP has chosen landfills that meet these criteria. Toxic emissions from our incinerator that can harm human health are 2.5 to 5 times worse than the vetted landfills.
Almost all modern landfills capture methane gas. Even with food scraps going to landfill, the greenhouse gas emissions would be around 40% lower than burning trash in Dickerson.
Switching to zero waste strategies and landfill provide direct incentives to lower trash volume where burning does not. No matter the volume, the County pays Reworld the same amount to burn. Conversely, if we landfill our trash, we will only pay for the amount we send. As waste diversion and recycling increases, our costs will drop.
The volume of trash going annually to landfill from Montgomery County could be reduced (over time) to an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 tons a year (from 600,000 tons a year currently) with far less environmental and health impact, no more toxic chemicals being released into the air and no more risk of massive emissions exceedances.
