When Gov. Tom Wolf announced his budget in February, it included a $1 increase per ton on the tipping fee on municipal waste deposits in landfills.

The purpose of the increase is to generate an additional $22.6 million for the Hazardous Sites Cleanup Fund. But the increase could bump up residents’ garbage bills.

According to a budget brief by Wolf’s administration, the Hazardous Sites Cleanup Fund will have zero money left in it by the end of the year, unless a source of steady and adequate funding is found.

Jim Lambert, executive director of the Monroe County Municipal Waste Authority, said the fund is a financial source for the cleanup and restoration of abandoned hazardous waste sites in Pennsylvania, including landfills where hazardous waste was wrongly disposed.

“We’re still paying to clean up those messes,” he said. “It was because of bad behavior in the ’70s and ’80s.”

Lambert said that hazardous materials are supposed to be dumped in landfills with liners to protect the materials from seeping into the soil and groundwater.

In recent years, the cleanup fund has been tapped heavily.

Over the 22-year history of the Land Recycling Program, the state Department of Environmental Protection has approved 6,687 cleanups. They approved 367 cleanups in the 2017-18 fiscal year alone.

Lambert said he thinks the proposed increase in the tipping fee is the state’s way of raising the funds without raising taxes in general. But he also thinks the cost will just be passed on to municipalities and eventually their residents.

Larry Wittig, president of Tamaqua Transfer and Environmental Awareness Corp. in Tamaqua, agrees.

“It certainly will affect us,” he said. “We will pass it on.”

Wittig said his company, Tamaqua Transfer, hauls about 70,000 tons of garbage to the Commonwealth Environmental Systems Landfill in Hegins each year. If the tipping fee goes up another $1, then that’s another $70,000 he has to pay the landfill.

Tipping fees include several fees, such as the gate fee to the landfill, cost of processing, state regulatory fees and other fees, Lambert said.

For recycling, it includes a $4 per ton regulatory fee. Of that amount, $2 per ton goes to fund the state’s recycling programs.

Wittig wouldn’t say how much he pays the landfill for their tipping fee rate. Nor would he say how much he pays the materials recovery facility where his company, Environmental Awareness, takes recyclable materials, but he did say, “It’s twice as much to get rid of recycling.”

What he did say was that he knows of a recycling company in the Lehigh Valley that charges a tipping fee of $94 per ton for recyclable material, so that would put the garbage tipping fee at about $47 per ton.

Even given the big difference in the tipping fees, Wittig still pays less for recycling, because he only recycles about 10,000 tons of material a year. That’s $94,000 total in tipping fees per year compared to $3.2 million in municipal waste tipping fees.

David Albright, the township manager for Chestnuthill Township, said any increases in the garbage industry won’t affect residents at this time.

He said Chestnuthill Township provides a transfer station, for residents only, where they can bring their garbage and recyclables. They charge a fee of $2 per 30-gallon bag, and Panther Waste Systems takes the garbage to the landfill for the township.

“Panther hauls about 100 tons per month (for Chestnuthill),” Albright said. “Panther, under the current contract, would not pass this cost on to the residents.”

David Bodnar, director of the Carbon County Office of Planning and Development, said the county dropped its recycling program. Since the haulers aren’t paying the tipping fee for recycling for the county, he hopes they will pass that discount on to the municipalities.

“Hopefully, they would amend their tipping fees,” he said.

Carbon is one of a few counties in the state that discontinued its recycling program.

According to the state Department of Environmental Protection, Susquehanna, Pike, Cambria, Perry and Blair counties, also eliminated or modified their programs, because of financial reasons.

Bodnar said it was too expensive.

One thing that concerns Bodnar is the improper disposal of household hazardous materials, such as televisions.

“I think that’s a big problem in the county. That is one thing that we need help with from the state,” he said.

Several municipalities offer electronic recycling events annually for their residents. They receive grants from the state to help cover the cost of the proper disposal of these items.

Information about these events are advertised on the municipalities’ websites or by calling their offices.