Baltimore’s main landfill just got a lot quieter. Since the city more than doubled what big customers pay to dump trash at the Quarantine Road landfill, deliveries have dropped off sharply, rattling budget projections and raising a blunt question at City Hall: if the garbage is not going there, where is it going, and who is footing the bill?
On Oct. 1, the Board of Estimates signed off on raising the combined tipping fee from $67.50 to $135 per ton, a jump that took effect Nov. 1 for commercial haulers and large residential loads, according to CBS Baltimore. City officials and the Department of Public Works said the fee had not been updated since 1993 and pitched the move as a way to discourage out-of-area dumping and stretch the life of the landfill, describing it as the facility’s first fee hike in over three decades. The increase was supposed to pour millions into the fiscal 2026 budget, but the early numbers are already throwing that promise off balance.
Deliveries plunge as haulers change course
Department of Public Works data show Quarantine Road took in 8,585 tons in November and December of 2024, but only 4,364 tons in the same months of 2025, a steep drop reported by The Banner. That outlet also reported that WIN Waste Innovations, the operator tied to the BRESCO incinerator, sent nearly 100,000 tons of incinerator ash to Quarantine Road in 2025, and that council members at a recent hearing blamed large private haulers for quietly shifting their loads elsewhere.
Local haulers and waste companies have not publicly challenged the overall downward trend. Industry sources, though, point out that long-term contracts, disposal capacity limits, and cross-state hauling deals can redirect large volumes of trash on short notice, especially when a key price suddenly doubles…