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What it costs to dump a ton of trash

Bar chart: median posted trash rate per ton by state. WA $141.00, OR $126.55, CA $101.87, PA $89.00, VA $65.00, GA $60.00, ID $59.00, CO $54.00, FL $52.00, NC $45.50, OH $43.43, MT $27.00; all verified rates median $60.00

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Most landfills and transfer stations charge self-haulers by weight once a load is past the minimum. We collected the posted residential per-ton rates for household trash (MSW) from facility rate sheets and checked each against its source.

Across 94 distinct fee schedules (117 facilities in 32 states), the median rate is $60.00 per ton. Among states with at least three schedules, medians range from $27.00 in Montana to $141.00 in Washington, and the West Coast is the most expensive region. The highest single posted rate was Ketchikan, AK at $255.72/ton. The lowest was Putnam County, FL at $24.00/ton for residential waste.

When several facilities share one county rate sheet, they count once, so a single big system can’t skew the median. State medians come from small samples and describe the facilities we verified, not every dump in the state.

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Method

Residential/self-haul MSW per-ton rates only. Excluded: commercial-only and hauler rates, non-resident rates where residents dump free, C&D/demolition/yard-waste-only rates, unnamed facilities. Schedule grouping: facilities count as one schedule when they share the same normalized source URL (lowercased, no scheme/www/query/fragment/trailing slash) where the price appears, at the same price. Examples: King County WA stations (incl. Skykomish), Metro Central & South (OR), the 3 DSWA landfills (DE), Inyo County CA (3), Lane County OR $25 minimum (5), Snohomish County WA $30 minimum (5). Guadalupe and Kirby Canyon (CA) cite different pages and count separately. Highlands County FL included at $55/ton: its schedule lists "Class I Waste (Residential & Commercial) MSW $55 per ton". Each value was checked against the cited source page text.

Data: nearestdump.com, verified October 2026. Every figure was checked against the facility’s own posted page, linked below. Fees change, so call ahead before you go.

Sources

Facilities (117)

Excluded on review (30)

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