Is Kansas City running out of landfill space? How much trash we make and where it goes

Editor’s note: This story is part of The Star’s series “Talking Trash.” All of the stories were inspired by questions and concerns we heard from Kansas Citians through listening sessions, an online callout and other conversations in our community. Stories will run throughout April, and you can find them all here. You can share thoughts in the form at the bottom of this story, or email kcq@kcstar.com. We’d love for you to join Star staff at a community cleanup event this month (more on that further down).

Recent controversy over a potential new landfill in south Kansas City has prompted the city to consider its waste disposal needs.

Some residents wonder whether a new landfill is necessary — and that depends on whether the current ones are filling up.

In 2021, the greater nine-county Kansas City area sent around 2.8 million tons of trash to landfills in Kansas and Missouri. That comes out to a little more than 7 pounds of waste per person, per day, according to Lisa McDaniel, the Mid-America Regional Council’s Solid Waste Program Manager.

“We haven’t done a brand new facility permit in, I want to say 20 or 30 years,” said Dave Drilling, who directs the permitting office at the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

“A lot of what we see is an existing facility that’s getting close to capacity, and they want to expand. There’s a lot of resistance to brand new sites.”

But unpopular as they may be, landfills are a necessary resource in the metro’s waste disposal process.

A landfill is more than a simple hole in the ground that accumulates trash. Experts told The Star that they’re complex sites designed to store waste for generations using techniques that minimize environmental impact.

Landfills must follow construction guidelines set by federal, state and local governments that help protect the environment and reduce nuisances for nearby residents.

These measures include building a barrier of clay below the trash and covering the surface with soil overnight to prevent odors and blowing trash.

Three landfills serve most of the solid waste needs in the Kansas City area:

• Johnson County Landfill in Shawnee

• Courtney Ridge Landfill outside of Harrisonville

• Central Missouri Landfill in Sedalia.

All three of these landfills are owned and operated by private companies.

Are KC’s landfills running out of space?

A handful of landfills in the metro area are already completely full and are no longer in use, according to Lisa McDaniel, the Mid-America Regional Council’s Solid Waste Program Manager.

These include a former landfill in Lee’s Summit and several others.

And the active landfills serving the metro area are already running out of space.

“There are very few landfills left in Missouri that have more than 30 to 40 years of capacity,” McDaniel said. “There’s some other landfills in Kansas, but again, they also have limited lifespans. So it’s theoretically possible that we could be looking at having no landfill capacity in the metro by 2050.”

Here’s a look at how much space Missouri’s landfills have left. Click on each trash symbol on the map below to see the landfill’s name, how full it is and how many years of lifespan the Missouri Department of Natural Resources estimates it has left.

This map shows only Missouri landfills, and does not include one of the three in the Kansas City area: the Johnson County Landfill owned by WM.

A spokesperson for the company told the Star that this landfill has a projected closing date of 2043, giving it just 20 years of remaining capacity.

Nevertheless, Kansas City public works director Michael Shaw told The Star that trash production increased during the pandemic as more people spent their days at home. These higher amounts have yet to subside.

How do landfills work?

Landfills are constructed in small units called cells. Each cell starts as a hole in the ground lined with a clay-like substance made from shale and a sturdy plastic liner. These components prevent any contaminants from leaking into the groundwater.

Next, the cell is filled layer by layer. Garbage trucks drive down into the cell to dump their trash.

The waste is then spread out by huge bulldozers and crushed down by compactors to maximize what those in the industry call “airspace” — the amount of room left in the cell before it is considered full.

Each evening, workers add a layer of soil over the compacted trash to reduce odors and prevent trash from blowing away.

The next morning, this barrier layer is removed so another layer of trash can be added.

Each cell is built up until it reaches ground level — or, in some cases, rises above the ground. The surface of a landfill mound can’t be more than one third as tall as it is wide.

At the Johnson County Landfill, sparse grass and the first green shoots of springtime plants can be seen along the slope of several finished cells. Nearby, workers wet and churn the slate material on top of a high ridge, preparing it to line a new cell.

During the Star’s visit, at least four enormous semi truck beds were emptied onto the active surface of the current cell.

Large bulldozers and cement rollers shoved the newly dumped trash around to even out the surface of the cell.

This process happens every day, in all weather, to ensure Kansas City’s waste has somewhere to go.

What do landfills do to our environment?

Landfills can produce odors and blowing trash, as well as more serious hazards like groundwater contamination and methane gas: a potent and explosive greenhouse gas produced by organic material decomposing in an enclosed environment.

For these reasons, the federal government requires landfills to perform air and groundwater monitoring, even after the landfill is completely full and has been permanently closed.

Larger landfills, like the ones serving Kansas City, are also required to capture methane to prevent hazards and lessen their environmental impact.

The Johnson County landfill captures methane by drilling a series of thin wells down into the structure. These pipes funnel methane to a large escape valve, where around 40% of it is burned in a process called “flaring.”

The other 60% is collected and cleaned so it can be used as natural gas to power vehicles or heat homes. The landfill is upgrading its power station, so operators hope the amount they can collect will rise to 100% once the facility is completed.

Learn more about the journey that your trash takes to end up in the landfill here.

While some foreign countries incinerate most of their trash rather than burying it, landfills are the primary resting place for most of the solid waste in the U.S.

Officials in the metro and beyond hope that Kansas City can reduce its use of landfills by switching to alternate disposal methods like recycling and composting.

“Right now, there just are really no other long term solutions,” McDaniel said. “We can’t reduce everything. We can’t recycle everything. We’re not to that point. We generate trash. So there is a significant amount — 2.8 million tons every year — that has to go somewhere.”

Do you have more questions about where Kansas City’s waste ends up? Ask the Service Journalism team at kcq@kcstar.com.