Residents throughout Orange County could be paying a lot more for trash disposal by the end of the decade.<\/p>\n
It comes after OC Supervisors signed off on a new set of rate hikes on Tuesday for cities to dispose of their residents\u2019 waste at the dump, with plans to almost double the current rates by 2030.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a plan that county and city leaders have been debating behind closed doors for over a year after city managers brought up concerns over a sharp increase originally proposed last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
[Read: Are Trash Rate Hikes On the Horizon for Orange County?<\/a>]<\/p>\n Right now, cities who participate in the county\u2019s waste disposal deal are paying a little under $44 per ton of waste.\u00a0<\/p>\n At the end of June, that cost will jump up to $67 a ton, and will continue increasing through 2029, where the fee is set to cap out at $81.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2030, it\u2019s unclear how much the increase will be, with the increase based on inflation according to a system called the Consumer Price\/Waste Industry Index, or CPI.\u00a0<\/p>\n Costs are also set to go up for cars and trucks bringing trash to the dump, with prices in one case tripling from $5 to $15 for cars and large waste items like furniture and mattresses.\u00a0<\/p>\n While county supervisors didn\u2019t address the increase when they approved it on Tuesday, county staff noted the fee increases were agreed to by the Orange County City Managers Association, which had a choice between the gradual increase or an immediate bump up to $73 a ton for trash.\u00a0<\/p>\n Staff noted the increases are needed to ensure they can cover the rising costs of dealing with trash.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe proposed rates reflect OCWR\u2019s (OC Waste and Recycling) projected cost of operation, maintenance and infrastructure as well as the costs related to regulatory and legislative mandates,\u201d wrote staff in their report. \u201cRates are structured with automatic annual escalation \u2026 to ensure that revenue increases along with inflationary increases to the costs of managing the Waste Infrastructure System.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the county\u2019s landfills are also starting to run out of room, with plans to close the Brea Olinda landfill in the near future and ramp up operations at the county\u2019s two remaining landfills.\u00a0<\/p>\n [Read: Irvine Asks Future Homeowners to Sign Away Right to Sue Nearby Landfill<\/a>]<\/p>\n That boost comes as many cities are already struggling to balance their budgets, pointing to steadily increasing costs and tax rates that aren\u2019t keeping up.\u00a0<\/p>\n [Read: Orange County Cities Scramble to Patch Budget Gaps<\/a>] Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org. <\/p>\n \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Residents throughout Orange County could be paying a lot more for trash disposal by the end of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,75685,6703,4765,75686,2267],"class_list":["post-153747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-bowerman-landfill","tag-county-government","tag-orange-county-board-of-supervisors","tag-trash-rates","tag-voice-of-oc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
There\u2019s also a separate rate for cities looking to get rid of organic waste at $67 a ton, an issue many cities have struggled to handle according to a 2024 grand jury report<\/a> that found most were failing to properly dispose of organic waste.<\/p>\n