County Council Continues Deliberations on the Future of the Dickerson Incinerator
Your voice matters. County leaders are considering the timeline for closing the Dickerson incinerator. Please urge the Council to keep the closure process moving and end trash burning in Dickerson for good. Click the link to Email All Councilmembers (or use this email: countycouncil@montgomerycountymd.gov).
Updated October 23, 2026
On October 20, Montgomery County residents gathered for a town hall hosted by Councilmember Laurie-Anne Sayles to discuss the future of the County's aging Dickerson trash incinerator. Representatives of the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) addressed questions about the costs, environmental impacts, and practical challenges of transitioning away from incineration.
The County Council reviewed 4 options currently under consideration. The discussion highlighted the important choices facing the County: continuing to operate and upgrade the incinerator, transitioning to truck hauling and landfill disposal, and introducing advanced waste processing technologies to reduce the amount of trash requiring disposal. Following the discussion, the panel reviewed pre-submitted questions from the community.
As the County Council moves closer to a decision, Sugarloaf Citizens Association (SCA) continues to advocate for closing the incinerator and moving toward safer, more sustainable waste management practices.
Zero Waste Responds to Reworld's Claims
As part of the ongoing Council deliberations, Reworld, the company that operates the Dickerson incinerator, has presented arguments for keeping the facility operating.
Our partner organization, Zero Waste Montgomery County, has prepared a detailed rebuttal addressing claims made by Reworld about Montgomery County's waste disposal options.
The 11-page rebuttal challenges what we believe are significant inaccuracies, misleading comparisons, and omissions in Reworld's presentation.
Key points from the rebuttal include:
Costs of Continued Incineration: Maintaining and upgrading the aging facility could cost hundreds of millions of dollars. The rebuttal argues that transitioning to landfill disposal would provide greater financial flexibility as waste volumes decline.
Air Pollution and Public Health: The rebuttal raises serious concerns about toxic emissions, including dioxins and heavy metals, and challenges Reworld's claims about the facility's environmental performance and health risks.
Inadequate Emissions Monitoring: Although some pollutants are continuously monitored, many hazardous emissions are tested only annually or not at all, potentially missing significant fluctuations.
Climate Impacts: The rebuttal challenges Reworld's comparisons of incineration and landfilling, citing analyses indicating that incineration produces greater overall greenhouse gas emissions, even when transportation is considered.
Trucking Alternatives: The rebuttal disputes claims about increased traffic and transportation impacts, citing DEP's proposed truck routes and schedules designed to minimize disruption.
Electricity Production: The rebuttal questions Reworld's claims about the amount of electricity the incinerator generates and the number of homes it can power.
Long-Term Sustainability: Continued incineration could delay investments in composting, recycling, waste reduction, and other alternatives that would move the County closer to its zero-waste goals.
Toxic Ash Disposal: The rebuttal challenges Reworld's characterization of incinerator ash as harmless and raises concerns about its disposal and potential reuse.
The Zero Waste rebuttal provides a closer examination of these issues and the long-term consequences of continuing to operate the Dickerson incinerator.
What Happens Next? Your voice Matters.
The County Council’s next worksession is October 27, followed by a November 10 vote on whether to continue incinerating trash or send residual waste to landfills.
SCA continues to urge the Council to move forward with transitioning to truck hauling and environmentally vetted landfills, close the Dickerson incinerator, and invest in composting, waste reduction and advanced waste processing strategies.
The decisions made in the coming weeks will shape Montgomery County's waste management system for decades. Review our rebuttal, stay informed and reach out to every County Councilmember and let them know you want to stop burning our trash and start composting now.
BACKGROUND and 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 Councilmembers 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 Councilmembers 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 Councilmembers 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 Councilmembers, 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.
CRITICAL UPDATES
Background
This link will take you to a recent Maryland Matters commentary by SCA President Lauren Greenberger on this issue.
This link will take you to a detailed rebuttal of a report written by two members of the advocacy group Friends of Sligo Creek that suggested that continuing to incinerate might be the best course of action.
This link will take you to an article that appeared in the Spring 2025 issue of PLENTY magazine. The article, written by SCA Vice President Steven Findlay and President Lauren Greenberger, has relevant background information on this issue.
Addendum: SCA’s role in composting food scraps
SCA has some legal authority over the proposed expansion of the County’s yard waste compost facility in Dickerson. This dates back to a legal settlement in the 1990s after the County broke environmental rules in our area.
The County proposes expanding the compost facility to accommodate the addition of food scraps to the existing mix of yard waste the facility now processes. The expansion would significantly increase the volume of compostable material at the facility.
Food scraps would be removed from the waste stream and mixed with yard waste at the Shady Grove transfer facility. The resultant mix would be shipped to Dickerson for final processing. The end result would be an enhanced version of a soil enrichment product (Leafgro®) that the County sells in the open market. The product is popular with farmers, gardeners and homeowners.
The County already encourages food scrap composting from restaurants and grocery stores, and has three pilot residential pick-up projects. The County Council in 2025 allocated $28 million to implement the expansion of the Dickerson facility.
SCA is in active negotiations with the County about the expansion. But many questions remain to be answered by DEP about how the facility will be expanded and operate, and the impact on the community.
The County and SCA have so far agreed to consider such an expansion if: (a) the incinerator is shuttered and (b) the County provides SCA and the community with a detailed operational plan and agrees to mutually acceptable terms of implementation and operation. We expect to receive a draft of that plan soon. The community will have an opportunity to air concerns and ask questions of County officials.