Preface

Since its establishment in 1970, the Illinois EPA has overseen the development and operation of a productive system of modern sanitary landfills. The Agency sees to it that these facilities meet the strictest disposal standards in history, and that they are engineered to be fully protective of human health and the environment, especially where it concerns any possibility of groundwater contamination.

This is the Agency's 13th annual report on landfill disposal and available landfill capacity in Illinois.  The number of active landfills in Illinois accepting waste in 1999 decreased from 58 to 53, but their total capacity  reached an all-time high during that year.  Sufficient capacity exists to handle the state's requirements for landfill disposal of nonhazardous solid waste for the next 16 years, ensuring there should be no landfill capacity crisis in Illinois for the foreseeable future.

The State of Illinois, seeking to avoid potential crises, has asked all Illinois counties to adopt and update every five years well-conceived plans to accommodate their future disposal needs.  Additionally, the Agency's seven regional offices and 18 counties, the Ambraw Valley Solid Waste Agency and the City of Chicago have been delegated the authority to inspect landfills, transfer stations and compost sites in their jurisdictions, providing a needed service to the citizens of Illinois.  All of these activities are reflected in this publication.

The Agency hopes you will find this information useful and instructive, and welcomes your comments and suggestions as to how it may be improved.

Thomas V. Skinner
Director

These are Adobe Acrobat PDF files. You will need the free Acrobat Reader software, available from Adobe's web site, to view them.

You can download the full report or individual sections.

Full Report (328 pages, 2.6M)

Introduction (86K)

Regions

• Region One: Northwestern Illinois (248K)
• Region Two: Chicago Metropolitan (512K)
• Region Three: Peoria/Quad Cities (319K)
• Region Four: East Central Illinois (218K)
• Region Five: West Central Illinois (190K)
• Region Six: Metropolitan East St. Louis (261K)
• Region Seven: Southern Illinois (219K)
  

Appendices

• Solid Waste Landfills:  Appendices A,B,C & D (74K)
• Solid Waste Transfer Stations:  Appendices E, F & G  (71K)
• Landscape Waste Compost Facilities: Appendices H, I & J (53K)
• Solid Waste Planning and Recycling:  Appendices K, L & M:  (57K)

Form 272: Report Documentation Page (9K)     

Executive Summary

This is the Illinois EPA's 13th annual report describing the management of nonhazardous municipal solid waste by the state's solid-waste landfills and transfer stations. The report is divided into sections representing Illinois EPA administrative regions.

Each regional section includes newly designed specification pages describing the chief physical characteristics of each landfill.  Provide are: its location and hours of operation, tipping fee, quantities of wastes received (in gate cubic yards, tons and tons per day) for the last three years, the landfill's certified remaining capacity (in gate cubic yards and tons) for the last two reporting periods, solid waste management fees paid in 1999,  the Agency regional field office or delegated local authority that inspects the facility; and the name, address and phone number of the landfill's owner and operator.

Similar but scaled-down specification pages are included for each transfer station. In all, this report includes details of 77 landfills and 66 transfer stations.

Illinois municipal solid waste landfills are required to report to the Illinois EPA the quantities of solid waste they receive each year, and to calculate and report the amount of remaining capacity existing on the first day of the following year.

During 1999, 53 landfills reported receiving 50.6 million gate cubic yards of waste. This volume was 5.8 million gate cubic yards more than the total received during 1998, a 12.9 percent increase.

As of Jan. 1, 2000, 54 landfills reported having a combined remaining capacity of  792.7 million gate cubic yards, or 43.3. million gate cubic yard more than on Jan. 1, 1999, an increase of 5.8 percent.

Dividing wastes disposed during 1999 by capacity remaining on Jan. 1, 2000, indicates a landfill life expectancy in Illinois of 16 years, at 1999 disposal rates, barring capacity adjustments, until capacity is depleted.