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TYLER \u2013 In the midst of the usual uptick in recycling and waste during the holidays, their workload is only increasing, because everything\u2019s now going to the landfill together. Every day, dozens of trucks sit in line at the Greenwood Farms Landfill in Tyler waiting to dump their trash. East Texas landfill and sanitation workers are still feeling the impact of a major recycling center catching fire in Kilgore six months ago and halting services for many local cities. <\/p>\n
\u201cAbout 300 trucks come through here every day and unload about a thousand tons per day,\u201d said manager of municipal services at Greenwood Farms Landfill, Gene Keenon. Towards the end of the year, Keenon said that number doubles. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just the holiday rush they\u2019re facing. Since River\u2019s Recycling Center shut down in Kilgore, recyclables are also coming to the landfill. \u201cIt\u2019s about 300 tons a week that we used to be diverting out of the landfill. It\u2019s now coming back into the landfill,\u201d Keenon explained. That\u2019s an extra 300 tons per week his workers have to deal with. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe just try to work a little faster to try to get it up,\u201d Keenon said.<\/p>\n
Over in Longview, sanitation and compost manager Kim Wallace said they are already dropping off more at the Pine Hill Landfill, and they\u2019re expecting it to increase by about a quarter more during the holidays. Picking up trash and recyclables is affecting them in other ways, as well. \u201cWhat it does for us is it cut down on the amount of overtime that we were paying,\u201d Wallace explained.
\nRather than sending a trash truck and a recycling truck, they are now only sending one truck to pick it all up. \u201cSo instead of now staying out sometimes to about 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. at night, the guys and the ladies and gentlemen are getting out a lot earlier,\u201d said Wallace. \u201cAnd so we are, as far as overtime, saving on that end for sure.\u201d <\/p>\n
Keenan, on the other hand, said his employees at the landfill are working more. \u201cIt\u2019s very hard on our workers, but they do it somehow,\u201d said Keenan. <\/p>\n
All of these factors are leading up to their busiest time of the year. Despite the workload increasing, Keenan assured our news partner, KETK, that the landfill isn\u2019t at risk of running out of room. \u201cThis landfill has 400 years. There\u2019s not going to be a crisis anytime soon of landfill space,\u201d Keenan explained. Both Keenan and Wallace fear the real impact will instead come later. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a real challenge trying to educate and get people to recycle properly, and I don\u2019t want that to go away just because we\u2019ve had a one year lapse in recycling, and I\u2019m afraid that\u2019s going to happen,\u201d Keenan said. The best advice is to not lose old habits. Residents should keep doing what they have always been doing with their trash. <\/p>\n
Both Keenan and Wallace said they were told River\u2019s Recycling should be back up and running by June of next year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TYLER \u2013 In the midst of the usual uptick in recycling and waste during the holidays, their workload is only increasing, because everything\u2019s now going to the landfill together. Every day, dozens of trucks sit in line at the Greenwood Farms Landfill in Tyler waiting to dump their trash. East Texas landfill and sanitation workers … Continue reading Landfill workers feeling impact of Kilgore fire<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1378430,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2016\/04\/landfill-191x200.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1378423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-11 00:22:01","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2016\/04\/landfill-191x200.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1378423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1378423"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1378423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1378608,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1378423\/revisions\/1378608"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1378430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1378423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1378423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1378423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}