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SALT LAKE CITY — A committee of lawmakers Wednesday endorsed a measure that would clarify that residents of rural Utah who lack garbage pickup service could legally bury their non-hazardous household waste.
Sponsored by Rep. Ronda Menlove, R-Garland, the bill discussed in the Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Interim Committee grew out of road trips she took to very rural sections of Box Elder County.
Menlove told her colleagues that residents in those isolated areas lack garbage pickup services and have either been burying or burning their trash.
Research unveiled that there are federal prohibitions against residential incineration of trash, but no such restrictions exist on a federal or state level for the burial of trash.
Menlove told the committee the measure would only apply to rural residents who lack garbage pickup service and only to household waste disposed of on their property.
"It's all being done in an orderly and clean manner," she said. "These are great stewards of the land."
