Lebanon County’s commercial waste haulers will be getting a lower rebate in 2025 for each ton of trash delivered to the Greater Lebanon Refuse Authority.

At its recent meeting, the board approved decreasing the rebate to $2 per ton from its current rate of $4 per ton.

“The one caveat is municipalities that contract for their waste hauler will continue to get a $4 per ton rebate,” Robert ‘Skip’ Garner, executive director, told the board prior to their vote.

Currently, only five municipalities contract for waste hauling — West Lebanon, Palmyra, Mount Gretna, Richland, and Annville. In the county’s other municipalities, property owners decide on their haulers.

Garner told the board that most of the municipalities in Dauphin and Lancaster counties contract for waste hauling.

“It means instead of seven haulers in a town five days a week, it’s one hauler,” Garner said. “It’s more efficient, and you have better control because you know when waste is being picked up.”

Who receives the rebate — the municipality or the hauler — depends on who pays GLRA, Garner added.

Haulers currently pay a tipping fee of $72 per ton to GLRA, a rate in effect since 2020, said Garner in a subsequent telephone interview.

Haulers drop off loads at the Greater Lebanon Refuse Authority. (Will Trostel)

Garner also reported that the volume of waste delivered to GLRA in October topped 12,000 tons — an amount higher than in October in both 2022 and 2023. Revenues from tipping fees were $893,584 for October 2024.

“This is the first time our volume has been above the budget forecast since April,” he said.

In his report, GLRA engineering manager James Zendek said hundreds of feet of leachate cleanout lines were scoured recently, breaking up a tar-like substance known as “black goo.” But the goo had held back leachate — liquids created as part of the decomposition process — inside the pipes.

Read More: Gel-like black goo gumming up landfills across the country, including GLRA

“Jet scouring of the leachate cleanout lines will become a routine task,” Zendek told the board.

In other business, the GLRA board:

  • Approved a contract with Utility Service Co. for $925,000 for repairs to the landfill’s leachate tank to be completed in summer 2025.
  • Approved renewal of mandatory Environmental Impairment Liability Insurance for 2025 at a cost of $15,232.32.
  • Heard that PennDOT and DEP were at GLRA as part of Trash Net, an inspection program aimed at haulers’ vehicles.

The board of the Greater Lebanon Refuse Authority meets at 1800 Russell Road. The next meeting will be at 7 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 3. The meetings are open to the public and do not require registration.

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Margaret Hopkins reports primarily on West Cornwall Township, the City of Lebanon Authority, and the Lebanon County Metropolitan Planning Organization. A resident of Mount Gretna Campmeeting, she is interested in the area’s history and its cultural and economic roots. As a former print journalist,...