Promoting free or even paid-for landfill use
There are economic, environmental, and practical arguments for making landfill disposal free or even subsidized, rather than charging tipping fees.
The major case for free or subsidized landfill disposal is that it reduces Illegal dumping. Charging per ton or per bag creates an incentive for some households and businesses to illegally dump waste to avoid fees. And illegal dumping cleanup is expensive for municipalities, because cleanup costs sometimes exceed the revenue from tipping fees.
Eliminating fees would remove the incentive to dump in streets, rivers, or abandoned lots. Free disposal would lead to fewer external cleanup costs. Furthermore, it would encourage proper waste management by small businesses. Many small contractors, such as roofers, landscapers, carpenters face tight margins, and tipping fees can encourage burning waste onsite, causing air pollution, dumping in forests or fields.
Subsidized disposal lowers the total social cost, and aligns with the notion that pollution should be a centralized strategy because landfills are controlled environments with liner systems, leachate collection, and methane capture systems. If waste ends up in nature, none of these protections exist. Some argue that the goal is to centralize pollution where it can be controlled, even if it costs taxpayers money.
Landfills with methane capture systems can produce electricity or renewable natural gas. They can generate heat and earn carbon credits in some markets. More waste means more methane to capture. If methane capture efficiency is high, and modern systems can exceed 60-90% in well-managed sites, the value from gas production can partly offset the cost of accepting waste.
More throughput leads to more biogas and higher revenue, reducing the need for tipping fees. It also reduces administrative and enforcement costs because charging tipping fees requires weigh stations, billing systems, fee enforcement, fraud prevention, together with staff to manage disputes
A free landfill model eliminates most of this overhead, and waste disposal benefits the entire community via clean streets, public health, and property values. A tax-funded model ensures equity - everyone uses waste services, so everyone pays. This is similar to how cities pay for roads, sewage treatment and policing
Free or subsidized landfill use can promote recycling if structured properly. Most recycling programs struggle financially when tipping fees are high and landfill diversion is the main incentive. If trash is free but recycling is supported by separate policy, recycling systems can be funded directly.
Furthermore, it provides social and economic benefits in rural or poor regions. In areas with higher poverty, high illegal dumping and limited municipal resources, subsidized landfill access can improve public health, reduce blight, and support small-scale economic activity without imposing regressive fees.
Unlike income tax, landfill fees disproportionately burden low-income households. The social costs of illegal dumping, pollution, administration, and public-health impacts of fee-based systems may exceed the revenue they generate. Free or subsidized landfill access can centralize and control waste more efficiently and safely.
These are powerful arguments. Now let’s see it tried out in practice.
Madsen Pirie