For 36 years some of the garbage streaming from the homes of Stanislaus County residents has been incinerated at a plant located near Crows Landing. But the waste-to-energy facility has shut down because the state has removed incentives of diversion credit that allowed the county to meet garbage diversion mandates and because the plant was a financial loser.

Environmental groups have heralded the closure of the plant, which has been operating since 1988, but county leaders and waste managers are posed with significant challenges.

The end of the incinerator means all the county’s garbage will be hauled to the Fink Road Landfill close to I-5. More waste going to the county landfill means it will fill up faster and reach capacity by 2040 instead of the projected year of 2058 with incineration. Meanwhile, the county will need to work on obtaining state approval for more landfill space when the need arises in 15 years.

The plant was being operated by the New Jersey-based company Reworld Waste (formerly Covanta) but the contract was ended at Dec. 2. The plant was operating at a significant loss.

While the incinerator turned garbage into electricity and reduced the amount of trash going to the county dump site, environmental groups claimed the smokestacks released harmful pollutants like ammonia and lead into the air. They also claim the ash that was buried from the plant was also harmful to the environment.

The company considered using the plant to manufacture biofuels or other options which did not pan out.

Reworld spokeswoman Nicolle Robles said the company is expected to decommission the plant and demolish it over the next two years.

The agreement with the county was set to expire in 2027. The early contract cancellation means the county will receive $1.68 million and $3.36 million from a resource recovery account – money that will pay for more equipment and personnel at Fink Road Landfill to handle the increased volume of waste.

The closure of the waste-to-energy plant will likely prompt an increase in the landfill tipping fees charged to haulers, which is passed onto households in the form of higher monthly garbage rates. A consultant hired by the county will be formulating a fee increase that will support landfill operation costs. That fee increase will be effective July 1.

Valley Improvement Projects supported the shutdown of the plant, saying on its website that “It does not make sense to continue to spend millions of dollars on facilities that burn and destroy materials – which then leads to continued extraction – instead of figuring out how to conserve these resources for future generations and protect public health and the environment from contamination.”

The group advocates a zero-waste economy in California to conserve resources through various practices such as composting, recycling and improved product design.

Under a decades-old state law, California jurisdictions are expected to divert at least half of their waste away from landfills each year. AB 1857, signed into law by Gov. Newsom removed the 10 percent diversion credit for municipal solid waste incinerators and redefine incineration as disposal.

According to a Stanislaus County report issued in 2022, the plant reduced the volume of waste going to the landfill by 90 percent and recovered metals that would otherwise be disposed of in the landfill. The plant processed (incinerated) about 257,440 tons of waste each year and produced an average of 72,557 tons of ash annually.