Community members and local officials were given another glimpse at Meadowview, a solid waste transfer and recycling facility proposed in Grayslake to replace the Countryside Landfill, during a public hearing earlier this month.<\/p>\n
Waste Management of Illinois is looking to build a 31,000-square-foot transfer facility and a 3,500-square-foot recycling center just south of the existing landfill, which is expected to close in the next few years.<\/p>\n
Although capable of handling up to 1,000 tons of waste a day, estimates for the proposed facility\u2019s average tonnage are about 500 tons a day.<\/p>\n
Meadowview would accept municipal solid waste, construction and demolition waste, and landscape waste. The recycling center would take household materials like electronics, textiles, shoes, food scraps, mixed paper, cardboard, plastics, metal cans, and glass.<\/p>\n
WM owns about 350 acres in the area between Route 83 and Buckley Road, including the existing landfill. Meadowview would sit just south of the landfill and north of the Lake County Recycling Facility.<\/p>\n
![\"In](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/lns-l-landfill-grayslake-countryside.jpg\")
In this April 3, 2009 file photo, bags of garbage wait to be compacted after being dumped at the active landfill at Waste Management Inc. which operates the Countryside Landfill in Grayslake, one of two landfills in operation in Lake County Illinois. The landfill is anticipated to close in the next few years. (David Trotman-Wilkins \/ Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n
According to Illinois Environmental Protection Agency documents, the Countryside Landfill originally began accepting waste in 1976. The 2025 IEPA landfill capacity report said that as of January of last year, it had about 2.7 million cubic yards of remaining capacity and a 3.6-year life expectancy.<\/p>\n
Don Moran, an attorney with WM, said at a May 18 hearing that the company anticipates Countryside closing sometime in 2027 or 2028. A WM representative said the landfill takes in about 900 tons per day, and has been operated by the company since 1998.<\/p>\n
Lake County Board member John Wasik, District 6, could not give comments on the facility during the hearing, but he said the landfill\u2019s closing will depend on the tonnage of waste brought in. More waste means an earlier closing, and less waste means later.<\/p>\n
Moran said that ideally, the new waste transfer and recycling facility would begin operation as the landfill closed, although he emphasized there were still numerous steps ahead before the facility could begin construction.<\/p>\n
According to a May 2024 presentation to the Lake County Planning, Building, Zoning and Environment Committee regarding Meadowview by WM, the facility would result in nearly 17,000 tons of decreased carbon dioxide emissions and 3.8 million gallons of saved diesel fuel consumption compared to a scenario where the landfill is closed without the transfer facility.<\/p>\n
Regardless of whether Meadowview is closed, the county\u2019s waste will be hauled elsewhere when Countryside closes \u2014 either to the Zion Landfill, or to transfer stations to send it to out-of-county landfills.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Community members and local officials were given another glimpse at Meadowview, a solid waste transfer and recycling facility…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[289362,192,289364,79,289363],"class_list":["post-661212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-countyside-landfill","tag-environment","tag-grayslake","tag-science","tag-waste-transfer-facility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}