JACKSON COUNTY, MI – A Jackson County landfill will soon be able to hold more waste.
On Tuesday, Sept. 23, the Jackson County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to sign a letter endorsing a vertical expansion at the Waste Management landfill on McGill Road. The approval came after the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy initially planned to reject its construction permit.
Waste Management applied for a construction permit in August of 2024 because the landfill only had about one year of capacity left, Drain Commissioner Geoffrey Snyder said. The site is Jackson County’s only Type II landfill, meaning it is a solid waste landfill.
The expansion will connect three currently separate cells of the facility by filling in the service roads between them, creating one large hill. However, EGLE initially viewed this as a lateral expansion rather than vertical and planned to deny the request, Snyder said.
EGLE changed its position after he and Waste Management appealed the decision, later informing him they would issue the permit if the county provided a letter endorsing the project.
Waste Management can move forward with the expansion immediately after receiving the permit, Snyder said. This expansion will extend the landfill’s operational lifespan by 13 years.
Without this expansion, Jackson County residents would have faced increased costs as unrecycled solid waste would need transportation to facilities outside the county, resulting in additional gas and transportation expenses for residents, businesses and local government agencies, he said.
“Everybody generates solid waste, and what’s not recycled is no longer burned, it’s landfilled,” Snyder said. “The cost of business was going to go up at that denial by the state.”
Waste Management and EGLE did not respond to request for comment.
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