Utah lawmakers propose legalizing burying of trash in rural areas that have no pick-up service

Utah legislators have a solution for rural residents who don't have regular trash pick-up: bury it. On Wednesday, a legislative committee "endorsed a measure that would clarify that residents of rural Utah who lack garbage pickup service could legally bury their non-hazardous household waste," Amy Joi O'Donoghue reports for the Deseret News in Salt Lake City. The "measure would only apply to rural residents who lack garbage pickup service and only to household waste disposed of on their property."

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Ronda Menlove (R-Garland) said rural residents who lack trash pick-up were either burning or burying it anyway, O'Donoghue writes. She said "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." (Read more)