Facilities

Operation Hours

The landfill operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but is only open to the public Monday through Saturday, from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.

NOTE: Treated Medical Waste and whole animals will be accepted at the Class I landfill if they cross the scale house before 4 p.m.

If you're a resident looking to bring waste to the landfill, please learn how to do so at our Customer Convenience Drop-off Center»

More information about bringing waste to the Authority's landfill»

The Authority owns and operates the Palm Beach Renewable Energy Park Landfill, also known as the North County Landfill. It's located west of the Florida Turnpike, near the intersection of S.R. 710 and Jog Road in northern Palm Beach County.

The area consists of two landfill cells: the Class 1 section covers 262.28 acres and the Class 3 covers 72 acres. The Landfill Customer Convenience Drop-Off Center is 221,484 square feet. The electricity for the Landfill Operations & Maintenance Facility is supplied from onsite electricity generation. The Facility is 6,700 square feet.

Capacity

Consisting of more than 50 million cubic yards of airspace and with a footprint of approximately 330 acres, this landfill opened in 1989 and is currently expected to provide disposal capacity until 2053 (See the latest Landfill Depletion Model.) with the construction of the Authority's new mass burn waste-to-energy facility, Renewable Energy Facility 2, which began operation in 2015.

Landfill Areas

The site consists of two landfill areas: one dedicated to the disposal of Class I waste and the other dedicated to the disposal of Class III waste. Class I waste includes ash and residue from the Renewable Energy Facilities, as well as garbage and other wastes that federal and state regulations require be disposed of in a Class I landfill. The Class III area, which consists of 72 acres and has nine million cubic yards of disposal capacity, accepts materials that are not required to be disposed of in a Class I landfill. This material is collectively referred to as "trash." Typical items include furniture, construction debris, roofing material, wood, carpet and vegetative debris.

Landfill Construction

The Authority’s landfill is constructed in cells averaging approximately 10 acres. These cells are constructed over time as active cells are depleted and closed.

Typical cell construction starts with highly compacted sand and is followed by a geosynthetic liner system. A layer of geosynthetic clay liner is installed. This is followed by a layer of 60-millimeter high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic liner. Next, two layers of plastic geonet, which promote water flow between the liners, are installed. A second layer of 60-millimeter HDPE liner is installed, followed by another layer of geonet and a geotextile filter cloth. The purpose of this liner system is to prevent water that is passing through the landfill, which is referred to as "leachate," from reaching the water table. The leachate collection system consists of a network of perforated pipes located within a drainage medium (rounded river rock) and wrapped in filter cloth that is installed on top of the liner system. The leachate collected by this system flows through a header, a gravity line, a pump station and a force main before it's injected into an industrial injection well 3,200 feet below ground.