LYON COUNTY — Plans for the future at the Lyon County sanitary landfill include more garbage than before, but lower fees for dumping it there. Speakers at Thursday night’s annual meeting for the landfill said they anticipated Redwood and Renville County will begin hauling solid waste to Lyon County later this year. And with additional customers, the landfill can lower the fees charged to waste haulers, said Lyon County Environmental Administrator Roger Schroeder.

Such a move is highly unusual for a landfill, but in Lyon County’s case, “It actually works out,” Schroeder said.

The annual meeting brought together members of the Landfill Advisory Board, including county commissioners from the eight counties served by the Lyon County landfill. Environmental staff from Lyon County and the Redwood/Renville Regional Solid Waste Authority were also present. Schroeder gave an overview of waste disposal and recycling activities in the area, as well as a proposed landfill budget for 2019.

Commissioners have been discussing the possibility of Redwood and Renville County becoming landfill customers for the past couple of years. Under the RRRSWA, Redwood and Renville County are currently sending trash to the Renville County landfill, until it fills up.

Representatives from the RRRSWA said Thursday they’re anticipating the Renville County landfill will close later this year. Around November, it’s possible that loads of trash will start coming to Lyon County instead. Lyon County landfill staff figured the change would bring in around 12,000 additional tons of waste a year, or more.

Once additional trash starts getting hauled to the Lyon County landfill, Schroeder said, the plan is to reduce the tip fee rates from $43 per ton to $39 per ton.

Landfill staff also went over landfill use statistics from the past year.

The landfill felt the impact of July’s flooding and storms, Schroeder said. That month, the landfill received about 4,600 tons of municipal and industrial solid waste — almost 15 percent more trash than the landfill received in July 2017.

From January through August, the landfill received over 30,100 tons of municipal and industrial waste.

The county’s grant-funded program to recycle mattresses has helped save space in the landfill this year, Schroeder said.

“I think the mattress recycling has been a huge success for us,” he said. Workers from Advance Opportunities have processed 4,980 mattresses for recycling. By keeping bulky mattresses out of the landfill, Schroeder said, enough space was saved to accommodate about $70,000 worth of trash. The county also received $36,704 in mattress fees.

Workers processing the mattresses were paid about $65,900 in wages through Aug. 31.

“The sad news is, we still had 1,427 mattresses go into the landfill,” Schroeder said. Many of those mattresses were damaged by flooding, and couldn’t be recycled, he said.

Schroeder also put forward a proposed 2019 budget for the landfill. The budget proposal included total revenues of $2.84 million, and projected expenses of $2.93 million. Part of the expenses would include construction of a new landfill cell, where waste is dumped.

Schroeder said the Lyon County Board will have final approval over the landfill budget. Advisory Board members voted to recommend the proposed budget be presented to Lyon County commissioners.