Santa Fe Solid Waste Management Agency

The Agency is committed to be an innovative, responsive, and integrated solid waste organization that provides a safe, cost-efficient and environmentally-sound management of solid waste generated for its customers in Santa Fe County while educating the public in the importance of waste diversion programs including waste reduction, recycling, composting, and special waste. The Santa Fe Solid Waste Management Agency (SFSWMA) was formed in 1995, under the terms of the New Mexico Joint Powers Agreements Act, NMSA 1978 Sections 11-1-1- through 11-1-7, by a Joint Powers Agreement executed by the City of Santa Fe and the County of Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Agreement delegated the Agency the power to plan for, operate, construct, maintain, repair, replace or expand the Caja del Rio Landfill and ultimately the Buckman Road Recycling & Transfer Station (BuRRT). The three parties, City, County and the Agency, each committed significant financial resources to the development of this new regional landfill. To site, permit and construct the Caja del Rio Landfill cost $18 million in 1996, with each party committing $6 million to the project. This cost included the acquisition of 640 acres of land, all structures at the Caja del Rio Landfill site as well as the construction of Cell #1 for disposal of solid waste. For the past two years, the Caja del Rio Landfill has been using Cell 4B for disposal capacity. Cell 4B cost the Agency $5.1 million dollars to develop (excavate and line) and should provide up to four years of disposal capacity. In 2003 the City and County approved the expansion of SFSWMA services beyond the landfill. SFSWMA embarked on the development of a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) at the old City Transfer Station to provide critical recycling processing services to the City and County of Santa Fe as well as communities across northern New Mexico. SFSWMA took over the Transfer Station on January 1, 2006 under a 20 year lease from the City. BuRRT is currently operating as the most advanced recycling facility in NM. The development of the MRF cost the agency approximately $3 million and has the capacity to serve the recycling needs of Santa Fe for many years to come. Check out the Tours page to experience recycling at BuRRT first hand. Although it is not the answer to reducing our impact on the environment, it does provide a way to use valuable materials more than once.  If we didn’t recycle, we could end up extracting and using non renewable resources (precious metals and oil) until they are completely depleted.

E-waste is any discarded device that plugs in, charges up, or takes batteries. It ranges from computers, office electronic equipment, entertainment devices, mobile phones, television sets and refrigerators. Many devices contain rare and valuable heavy metals that can be removed and recycled. Some devices also contain contaminants such as lead, cadmium, beryllium, or brominated flame retardants. It is important to keep these heavy metals out of the landfill to prevent leaching into our groundwater supply.Electronic waste is banned from our landfill. Luckily, there are many places to take your electronic waste to be properly recycled. Find your device on the list to the right and you will see the various places to drop it off (and sometime for free!).