Rate increases at the City of Knoxville’s Transfer Station go into effect Sept. 1, 2019.

The Transfer Station, located at 1033 Elm St., collects a wide variety of solid waste materials, including tires, building materials, construction/demolition debris, household trash and other materials not permitted in Waste Connections’ daily garbage collections. 

Effective Sept. 1, 2019, rates for disposal of solid waste materials at the Transfer Station will increase from $50 per ton to $60 per ton. Shingles or mixed loads that contain shingles will increase from $60 per ton to $70 per ton. 

About 700 tons per week – or nearly 37,000 tons per year – are collected at the Transfer Station.

To put this perspective, the Transfer Station each year collects enough solid waste to equal the weight of 185 blue whales, the largest mammal on earth.

“Forty percent of all the waste that the City manages comes from the Transfer Station,” said Patience Melnik, City Solid Waste Manager. “We are fortunate to have such a centrally located facility, making it quick and convenient for so many residents and businesses to discard their refuse.”

The efficient drive-through facility allows residents, contractors and other customers to easily use the facility for disposal of solid waste materials. 

“These new rates will enable us to cover the recent rise in the cost of landfilling the waste collected at the Transfer Station,” Melnik said. “City ordinance requires the Transfer Station to maintain operations under a break-even budget, and this rate change helps us meet that goal.”

The Transfer Station’s last rate change in 2016 increased the rate from $45 per ton to $50 per ton for solid waste materials.

The City of Knoxville Transfer Station will maintain its current schedule:

• Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays: 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.;
• Wednesdays: 7 a.m. to noon;
• Saturday: 8 a.m. to noon (open until 1 p.m. on Free-for-City-Residents Day); 
• Sunday: closed

The first Saturday of each month (excluding holidays) is Free-for-City-Residents Day at the Transfer Station. No non-city residents or commercial businesses may use the facility, and no shingles are accepted on these days. 

Those using the Transfer Station must drive across the scales to weigh the refuse being discarded, and smoking is prohibited. For more information on the City Transfer Station, please call 311 or visit knoxvilletn.gov/SWMF.