Free Dump Days October 22nd through 24th

Please dispose of your unwanted items properly. Sell, give away, recycle, and then bring the "stuff" that's left over to Free Dump Days.

Free Dump Days, Convenience Center off of Highway 52 on Hanging Fork Rd., Thursday-Saturday, Oct. 22nd, 23rd, 24^th, 9 AM to 3 PM daily. Everything dumped for free with the following exceptions: $1 per bag for household garbage and $2 for tires. Construction debris is weighed and charged normal fee. No propane tanks or hazardous waste accepted.

When this program is advertised as free, why are the above charges listed?

1. Free Dump Days were never intended to take the place of the proper disposal of household garbage throughout the year. In past years, some people have literally saved up their garbage from spring to fall, and the fall to spring, and brought in truck and trailer loads of household garbage to the Convenience Center on Free Dump Days. Not only was this not the program's intention, this was a health hazard to all concerned. Also, the Convenience Center puts household garbage directly into a large trash compactor, not into the open top dumpsters, and each time the compactor is filled, the county pays about $700 to have it hauled away, and, it fills quickly. It would be just too expensive to underwrite this cost on Free Dump Days. So for these reasons, the decision was made to charge the regular fee, $1 per bag. (There are weekly garbage pick-ups available in both the County and City of Lancaster. Please refer to column on left to find names and phone numbers for these services.)

2. Tires cost the County $2 each to get rid of and there are specific government regulations as to how this is done; they do not go into the regular open top dumpsters. (Tire disposal is very expensive for the county and the cost must be charged back to the person(s) getting rid of the tires.) In June of this year, there was a Waste Tire Amnesty Program sponsored by the state where people could dump their tires for free and you can read about it and see pictures of the mountain of tires that was collected by going to our Categories Posted section (in left-hand column) and reading: 2009 Waste Tire Amnesty.

3. As with household garbage, Free Dump Days were never intended as a time for the free dumping of construction debris.

For more information about the program, please contact Solid Waste Coordinator Chris Thomason at 859-792-3821 (office) or 859-339-3233 (cell).