Waste Management

Chittenden County Facility Field Trip - September 2009

We often think of the cost of disposal as simply the "tipping fee" (disposal cost per ton) at an incinerator or landfill. However, transportation from the municipal facility to the disposal facility is also a component of disposal costs. If tipping fees are equal, the farther away the disposal facility, the greater the total disposal cost due to the greater transportation cost. However, it is often more complex and knowledge of your transportation costs as well as various 

tipping fees is essential when making operations decisions.

Transportation Cost Calculator

An Excel spreadsheet has been adapted to calculate truck hauling costs from a transfer station to a disposal site. This calculator was originally developed for grain trucks by the Iowa State University Extension in Ames, Iowa. It is easily transferable to solid waste. The spreadsheet allows you to input specific data for your truck. The cost calculation is built into the calculator as you enter information, it calculates the transportation cost by year, ton, and mile. The result is only as valid as the information put into the calculator.

The calculation cells are "protected," but you can "unprotect" them to tweak the spreadsheet if you feel you have better data. With the spreadsheet open in Excel, just go to "Tools" and then "Protection."

Click here to download this calculator (Excel spreadsheet) or go to the Publications Library.

Disposal Sites

A map is provided to show the various disposal options for the region. You can estimate the distance to the facility from your town and put this mileage into the Transportation Cost Calculator to compare the various costs. You will need to add the disposal cost of each facility to the transportation cost to get the total transportation and disposal fee by site. Tipping fees are constantly changing and can be negotiated depending on your distance from the facility, the quantity of waste you will deliver, and the period of time you obligate to deliver to that particular facility. A rough guide is provided of recent tip fees for Sullivan County municipalities. It also includes contact information for each disposal facility (link) including construction and demolition debris disposal.