Active area of landfill has lots of birds
| Location |
| 44090 County Road 28H, Woodland, CA 95776 |
| Hours |
| Mon-Sat 6:30am-4pm Sun 8am-4pm |
| Phone |
| (530)666-8729 |
| Website |
| Yolo County Central Landfill from yolocounty.org |
The central landfill for the county is located off on County Road 28H off of County Road 102 (or Pole Line Rd. inside Davis) just north of the city limits (map). Aside from taking the trash from Davis Waste Removal, it offers a variety of recycling and hazardous waste services as well. The landfill is owned and managed by Yolo County but it has no formal agreements with any of the cities it serves, though (as of 2006) the Yolo County Board of Supervisors is looking to change this. As of 2006, the county itself only contributes 8% of total waste tonnage while Woodland contributes 32%, West Sacramento 24%, and Davis 22%.1 (According to a 2006 article.)
Drugs (prescription and nonprescription drugs, steroids and reproductive hormones) should not be thrown in the garbage, or flushed down the toilet for that matter. Instead, they may be brought to either the Landfill's Hazardous Waste drop off or to the disposal kiosk at the Davis Police Department. (2)
Many tears ago, the owners of El Macero Pharmacy started a "Don't Rush to Flush" bin for proper drug disposal (see Davis Enterprise story).
Most of it is covered... 
except for the appliance recyclables 
and the nearly empty Leachate Pond at YCCL
Re-use = The Big Blue Recycling Barn
As of 2018, Yolo County offers free household drop off of re-use items at the central landfill between 7:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Furniture, tools, supplies, working equipment, kitchenware, home decor, BIKES, toys, bricks, and many other items in useable condition are accepted. These are then offered to the public at ridiculously low prices on occasional sales days. (Sales were bi-monthly thru 2018, will be going to 3/4 of the months in 2019.)
Volunteer opportunities are available; phone 530-666-8856 and ask for Marissa Juehler [pronounced JOO-ell-er].
Hazardous Waste Drop-Off Days
Every Friday and Saturday (started Oct 2010), Yolo County offers free household hazardous waste disposal at the central landfill between 7:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Automotive fluids, fluorescent lights, paint, pool chemicals, and other materials you should not be throwing in the trash or dumping down the drain are accepted up to a certain amount (125 pounds or 15 gallons) from any County resident. Matresses have their own area there.
A printable flyer (in both English and Spanish) has dates and other important information. (Download from https://www.yolocounty.org/home/showdocument?id=2767 )
Paint & Cleaners Pick-Up Days
The "paint closet" is a trailer where useable paint (and automotive and cleaning supplies) are set aside so county residents can come and take what they want -- up to a limit (currently 15 gallons for paint). Also open Fridays and Saturdays 7:30-3:30.
Recycling Services
The landfill will also accept certain materials for recycling, including the usual paper/plastic/aluminum that the local trash pick-up handles. They will also take electronics, in particular CRT televisions and CRT computer monitors which contain large amounts of lead and other toxic chemicals. This is a free service available every day the landfill is open. Check the website as the items recycled is always expanding (more electrical and electronic items were recently added to the recycling, so bring that dead vacuum).
Assistance with Disposal.
Yolo County Seniors (65+) or disabled County residents may call 530-666-8856 to schedule a free pick up of electronics or hazardous waste items.
Bioreactor
This is also the site of one of the EPA's Project XL bioreactor projects. The Yolo landfill started with two 10,000 ton demonstration plots in 1993 has has since scaled up to two 100,000 ton cells. They work by circulating liquid throughout the solid waste, considerably speeding up decomposition and allowing for greater utilization of landfill space. Yolo uses an anaerobic bioreactor, which forces decomposition in the absence of oxygen and releases large amounts of methane gas that can be captured and used for energy generation. The current set up can generate approximately 3 Mwatts which is sold to Southern California Edison. The current power generation set up makes money for the county, which is used to keep the fees for dumping at the landfill as low as possible (so people dump there and not on the side of the road).
Alternative
Some materials can be taken to Woodland Biomass instead. You can also Recycle.
Plastic Bags, Cardboard and Paper products at the Landfill
According to Ramin Yazdani, an employee at the landfill, plastic bags are a nuisance at the landfill, blowing around in the wind and causing staff to set up trash fences and collect them from around the area. He took the following photos to highlight the impact of plastic bags and the efforts they employ at the landfill to minimize their escape into the surrounding environment. The photos were submitted to the City Council on his behalf a movement to ban plastic bags in Davis.
Bags and paper products on a windy day 
more bags, cardboard and paper 
even more bags, paper and cardboard
2006-12-26 16:53:21 Ugh, I had to take something to the dump since they wouldn't pick it up in Davis. Don't do it unless you have to. Davis Waste Managment has all these "awkward items" days, the dump was gross, and I had to get out on this mountain of trash. It was slippery, stinky and I'm not really a total priss, I just didn't want to fall into the foul smelling mountain o' trash/mud. —AmyGoogenspa
2007-03-06 09:03:40 Just a quick thought on AmyG's comment...Those hills that encompass the Landfill are, in fact, giant piles of the garbage you throw away every day. Please reduce, reuse, and recycle as much as you can. —RocksandDirt Full Disclosure - I work for the landfill —Rocksanddirt
- Your point is moot considering that her trash is a very small portion of that whole entire landfill, much less even a smaller portion of that "mountain" of trash. You cannot recycle everything either, so we would still need landfills, even if we recycled everything that we could.
2009-07-23 14:56:12 They take computer components free of charge (That's why there's an $8 recycling fee when you purchase a new laptop or monitor or flatscreen TV. Also, don't pay in change. They don't like that. I paid in... I think it was rolls of dimes and they had me wait while they opened the rolls to count the change. —MasonMurray
2011-03-10 14:08:34 Let's see... Not only do Plastic Bags make up less than .4% of the total waste in California landfills, most of them, if not all, are also now made of vegetable base and not petroleum, making them biodegradeable...And we want to spend 350,000.00 here in Davis alone to ban them...
Why not actually ban something useful like Computer parts, TVs... things that are actually non-biodegradable and take up huge amounts of space in the landfills.. Even better, let's start small and ban something that is extremely terrible for the environment and not bio-friendly in anyway... Styrofoam containers! Sick of people complaining about the plastic bags... I re-use mine, if others don't, I don't care... It's not worth 350,000.00 of taxpayer money to ban them. —Wes-P
- Just because it is made of vegetable base DOES NOT mean it is biodegradable. Conversely, just because a plastic is made from petroleum doesn't men it is NOT biodegradable. Bioplastics can last millennia when covered by dirt.
2011-03-11 10:50:16 Wes, I think you might be misinformed. Film plastics make up over 4% of what goes to landfill by WEIGHT: 890 TONS/year from DAVIS RESIDENTS alone (http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/WasteChar/rescomp.asp?J=521&SortBy=Disposal). Most film plastic comes in the form of bags and shrink wrap. Few have any bio-based content and many are misleadingly labeled "degradable" meaning they have chemical softeners added to get them to break into smaller pieces as they persist in the environment. Also, I don't know where you got the $350,000 cost to the city to ban bags. This is not real there are no such costs associated with the program unless we went ahead and did an expensive EIR to prove the bags have impacts. There is already sufficient data out there as many EIRs have been performed at this point. If you reuse your plastic bags then you shouldn't be affected by the ban because you'll just keep reusing them, right? Or are they really not that reusable after all and will end up as pollution? —MikeSiminitus
2011-04-20 17:44:45 The 4% referenced in the above comment from the study (http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/WasteChar/rescomp.asp?J=521&SortBy=Disposal) refers to ALL film plastic, not just plastic bags. This includes film plastic used in the ag industry, syranwrap, ziplock bags, etc. More than just grocery bags. A more recent study (http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/Publications/General/2009023.pdf) done in 2008 shows that plastic grocery and other merchandise bags alone make up only 0.3% of California's overall waste, and only 0.6% of the residential waste stream. Not really worth the effort. —SophiePotter
Footnotes
1. Sherwin, Elisabeth. County eyes best ways to dispose of area's waste. The Davis Enterprise. 2006-08-07.
2. Yolo County's waste reduction and sustainability manager (Marissa Juehler) in a radio interview on KDRT (on Lois Richter's "That's Life"). 2018-09-27.
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