Local Rules

Where Draper's Waste Actually Goes

Membership is why your rates are what they are. It is also why the city cares so much about what goes in the can.

Seven member cities

Trans-Jordan is not a private tip that happens to be nearby. It is a jointly owned facility, and Draper is one of seven member cities.

Membership means the city has paid into building and operating the landfill properly — liners, leachate collection, a gas capture system and a cap — and in return has guaranteed disposal capacity for the long term. That is not a small thing. A city without a disposal arrangement is a city at the mercy of whoever has one.

It is also worth being clear about the distinction the operators themselves draw: a landfill is not a dump. A dump has no liner protecting the groundwater and no cap containing methane. A landfill has layered liners, a drainage system collecting leachate, and a cap that lets the sealed cell generate methane which is then pulled off for energy.

⚠️ Why membership matters to you

Two direct consequences for anyone living in Draper.

1. Draper pays a member rate, not the public gate rate. The gap between the two is substantial, and across a city's annual tonnage it runs into serious money. That is reflected in what residents pay for collection.

2. Draper is the highest waste-producing member city. Which is why the City is particular about what goes in the can, why recycling is a separate bi-weekly service, and why the rules about construction material are a category exclusion rather than a volume limit.

When you understand that the city is a part-owner of a finite asset, the rest of the system stops looking fussy and starts looking like asset management.

The landfill and the transfer station

Two facilities, and people mix them up constantly. They are not the same and they do not cost the same.

The transfer station is closer for most of the north end of our service area and takes recyclables free, but it is dearer per ton. The landfill is cheaper per ton and takes commercial loads any trading day. Which one suits depends on what you are carrying and when.

⚠️ Cover your load or pay twice

The single most expensive small mistake at either gate.

That applies at the landfill and at the transfer station. An uncovered trailer or an open pickup bed with a heap of debris on it is charged at double rate — not as a penalty notice, just as the price on the ticket.

It is not arbitrary either. An uncovered load sheds material across Bacchus Highway and 700 West, and in the canyon winds that come down this valley it sheds a lot of it.

If you are self-hauling: a proper tarp, tied down at every corner. Not a sheet laid on top, and not a tarp with a brick on it.

This is also one of the quiet advantages of a container. A roll-off is tarped and secured by the driver as part of the job, so the covered-load question never becomes yours.

Electronics: the program is suspended

Worth knowing before you load a container or plan a trip.

Trans-Jordan's e-waste recycling program has been suspended. The landfill still accepts e-waste, but as regular waste according to its fee structure — so it is priced by weight like anything else rather than handled as a recycling stream.

For a basement or office clear-out with a stack of old monitors and televisions, that changes the plan. Televisions in particular are heavy and bulky, and paying landfill tonnage for them is the worst of both worlds.

Worth checking whether a retailer take-back or a county e-waste event is running before you default to the landfill.

Household hazardous waste

This part is genuinely good and genuinely free.

Disposal of common household quantities is free for Salt Lake County residents at the county's Household Hazardous Waste Collection Center. Hazardous material is also accepted at safe HHW disposal sites at the Salt Lake Valley and Trans-Jordan landfills.

Paint, solvents, fuel, motor oil, pesticides, herbicides, pool chemicals, aerosols, fluorescent tubes and batteries all have a home there. None of them have a home in a roll-off container or in your City can.

The City is blunt about why: it is dangerous to put this material in a garbage can or down a drain, and it is illegal to abandon it or pour it into gutters, storm drains or waterways — with both civil and criminal penalties attached.

⚠️ Note the qualifier: the county facility is for Salt Lake County residents. Part of our service area is in Utah County, which has its own arrangements. Ask us and we will point you at the right one.

What this means for a container job

• Disposal is by the ton, so weight is the variable that moves your cost most.
• Clean masonry has its own route and is cheaper than mixed waste — keep it separate and keep it clean.
• Green waste is now ordinary trash at the gate rate, since the greenwaste program closed.
• Scrap metal has positive value and takes weight out of the container.
• Hazardous material and electronics need pulling out first, both because they are excluded and because e-waste by the ton is expensive.
• Covering and securing is our job on a roll-off, not yours.

A short checklist

• Draper is one of seven member cities — that is why rates are what they are
• Landfill: Bacchus Highway, Mon–Sat 8–6, $15 min / $41 a ton
• Transfer station: 700 W. Sandy, north entrance, Mon–Sat 7–5, $20 min / $51 a ton
• No commercial loads at the transfer station on Saturdays
• The transfer station takes a range of recyclables free for residents
• ⚠️ Cover and secure every load or be charged double
• E-waste recycling is suspended — accepted as regular waste by weight
• HHW is free for Salt Lake County residents at the county centre
• Never put hazardous material in a can, a drain or a gutter
• On a roll-off, covering and securing is on us