Local Rules

The Green Waste Program Is Gone. Here Is What Changed.

A lot of people are still planning yard projects around a service that no longer exists. The arithmetic has changed.

What happened

The Trans-Jordan Landfill used to run a greenwaste program — separate disposal for yard material, and product sales of the compost and mulch that came out the other end. It was cheap, it was well used, and for anyone doing real landscaping work it changed the cost of a project.

Permanently is the operative word. This is not a seasonal suspension, and the program is not coming back in its previous form.

⚠️ What it means in practice

Green waste has gone from being a cheap separate stream to being ordinary rubbish, priced by weight like everything else. Four consequences:

1. Brush now costs what trash costs. The economics of a large clearance changed overnight. Where it used to be worth separating green waste carefully, the incentive is now much weaker.

2. Weight matters more than it used to. Green waste is heavy, especially when it is fresh and full of moisture. A container of green brush weighs considerably more than the same volume of household contents.

3. Timing a project around a cheap green waste window no longer works. There is no window.

4. Anyone quoting you on old assumptions is quoting wrong. If a landscaper priced your job around the old program, the disposal line is out of date.

We would honestly rather tell you this before you book than have you discover it at the gate.

The two-foot can is not a substitute

The obvious reaction is to put more through the City can instead. It does not work, and the reason is the two-foot limb rule.

Your Draper City can takes household and yard trash with limbs cut to two-foot lengths, the lid has to close, and nothing can sit beside it. For a genuine pruning or removal job:

• Every branch has to be cut down twice over
• The volume still will not fit one weekly can
• Overflow beside the can is not collected
• Trunk sections, stumps and root balls are not yard trash at any length

On any tree of size, the labor of reducing branches to two-foot lengths costs more than a container does. That was true before the program closed; it is more obviously true now.

What still has a cheaper route

Not everything got worse. Several streams are still worth separating:

• Clean concrete, brick, block and stone. Masonry has its own disposal route and it is cheaper than mixed waste — but only if the load is genuinely clean.
• Scrap metal has positive value and its own route. Old fencing, gates, pipe and appliances are worth pulling out.
• Cardboard goes in your bi-weekly recycling can, flattened. On a landscaping job the packaging volume is real.
• Household hazardous waste — the pesticides, herbicides, fuel and old paint in the shed — is free for Salt Lake County residents at the county facility. Never in a container.

And the Sandy Transfer Station accepts a range of recyclables free of charge for residents, which is worth a trip if you are separating anyway.

Treated timber and landscape ties

A distinction that costs people money on nearly every outdoor project, and one the closure makes more relevant.

Clean untreated wood and brush is one thing. Treated timber is another entirely — pressure-treated lumber, painted or stained wood, laminated products and anything with a finish. In this climate essentially all exterior wood is treated, so a "wood" load from a deck or fence demolition is almost never a clean wood load.

Landscape ties are the local version of this. Extremely common in gardens here, heavily treated, and very heavy. They belong in a container, they were never green waste, and they are nowhere near what any free arrangement will take.

Same for fence panels and posts, painted or not, and anything with hardware still attached.

Soil, sod and rock

The other thing that comes out of a garden and is not green waste at all.

Soil, sod, gravel and decorative rock are extremely heavy — heavy enough that a small container part-filled with them reaches its weight allowance while it still looks half empty. A xeriscape conversion, which is common work here, produces a great deal of exactly this material.

• Tell us if there is soil or rock in the load. It changes the container we bring.
• Keep it separate where you can. Clean fill has a different route from mixed waste.
• Do not judge by eye. Half a container of rock is a full container by weight.

Sizing a yard project now

• Light brush and prunings: 15 or 20 yard — bulky and light, volume binds
• A mature tree removal: 20 or 30 yard, and cut it down before loading — a tree loaded whole takes three or four times the space
• Stumps and root balls: tell us in advance; they are dense and awkward
• Deck or fence demolition: 20 yard, treated timber, weight-aware
• Landscape tie removal: 10 or 15 yard — far heavier than it looks
• Xeriscape conversion with sod and rock: 10 yard, part filled, plus a swap
• Full landscape rebuild: 30 yard with a swap on standby

The general rule since the closure: green waste is now priced by weight like everything else, so plan for weight rather than for a cheap separate stream.

A planning checklist

• The green waste program is permanently closed — not seasonal
• Green waste is now trash at the gate rate
• Check any landscaper quote that assumed the old program
• The City can takes limbs at two-foot lengths, lid closed, nothing beside it
• Stumps and root balls are not yard trash at any length
• Cut trees down before loading — it saves three quarters of the space
• Treated timber and landscape ties are not green waste
• Soil, sod and rock are extremely heavy — say so when you book
• Separate clean masonry and scrap metal — both still pay
• Shed chemicals go to the county hazardous waste facility, free, never a container