Stop Burying Kentucky’s Wealth: Pass HB 372
by Roger Ford, President, Eureka Energy Corporation
Kentucky’s waste policy has been stuck on autopilot for decades: collect it, haul it, bury it, repeat.
That landfilling model is not only outdated—it is financially destructive for local governments.
Landfills don’t just bury trash. They bury money.
Here’s a simple statistical illustration of the current budget drain: if a county sends 25,000 tons of waste to a landfill each year—a very realistic number for many Kentucky communities—and pays a combined $55 per ton in disposal and hauling costs, that’s $1.375 million per year leaving the local budget. Over 10 years, that becomes $13.75 million spent just to bury waste. And that doesn’t include rising fuel costs, equipment replacement, road wear, staffing, or the long-term liabilities tied to landfill expansion and monitoring.
In other words, landfilling is not a one-time expense. It is a recurring budget leak.
House Bill 372 offers Kentucky a better path forward by shifting the Commonwealth toward a modern circular economy model—one that treats nonhazardous waste streams as a usable resource rather than a permanent burden. The concept is simple: if a material has value, we should not be burying it.
HB 372 establishes a clear framework for advanced recovery and circular energy facilities that recover useful outputs from waste using modern processes. Instead of sending waste to a hole in the ground, Kentucky communities can support projects that convert waste into economic activity—creating jobs, building new infrastructure, and capturing value that currently gets thrown away.
This shift creates a real opportunity for local governments: turn waste to wealth.
When communities reduce reliance on landfilling and support recovery-based development, they can help create new revenue streams tied to local waste flows, expand the local tax base through new industrial investment, and reduce long-term disposal costs that currently squeeze budgets. For many rural counties and small cities, that difference matters. It can mean more resources for roads, public safety, emergency response, and basic services—without constantly asking taxpayers to pay more for a system that delivers nothing but higher costs.
Just as importantly, HB 372 prevents outdated solid waste plans from being used to impose blanket prohibitions against modern facilities. This does not eliminate permitting, environmental review, zoning authority, or public accountability. It simply ensures that innovation is evaluated on facts and standards—not blocked automatically by inertia.
Kentucky has a choice. We can keep paying more each year to bury valuable resources, or we can modernize and build a system that creates jobs and revenue instead of liabilities.
HB 372 is a pro-growth, pro-local-government step in the right direction. The General Assembly should pass it.
