If you've Googled "Blount County dump" lately, you probably ended up at the same place everyone else does: the county landfill, with a $60 per ton tipping fee staring you in the face. For a single pickup load of broken concrete, that's a painful invoice. For a contractor running multiple loads a week, it's a budget killer.

You've got another option that most people in Blount County still don't know about - and it costs a fraction of what the landfill charges.

The Landfill Isn't Your Only Option

The Blount County Landfill is where most people land when they search for somewhere to dump construction debris. It takes concrete, but it charges commercial waste rates to bury it in the ground forever. That's around $60 per ton as of this year, and the number has been climbing.

Catch is, concrete isn't really waste. It's a raw material. When you pay $60 a ton to bury it, you're paying to throw away something valuable that can be recycled into aggregate and used again. That's why concrete recycling yards exist - and we're the only one in East Tennessee dedicated to it.

Where Blount County Residents Take Concrete Now

Smoky Mountain Sand & Gravel sits right here in Maryville at 245 Brookdale Rd. We take clean concrete from homeowners, contractors, landscapers, and anyone else who needs to get rid of it. Our drop-off rate is well under the $60/ton landfill fee - check our pricing page for current numbers, or run your load through the savings calculator to see what you'd pay.

We're open Monday through Friday 7am to 5pm, Saturday 7am to 12pm. No appointment. No paperwork. Pull in, dump, pay, leave.

Who Actually Brings Stuff Here?

The regulars at our yard look like this:

Homeowners tearing out an old patio, sidewalk, or short driveway section
Landscapers demoing decorative concrete or hardscape that needs to come out
Demo contractors with full dump trailers of foundation pieces and slabs
Excavation crews clearing sites for new builds
Concrete contractors with washouts and tear-outs from their own jobs
Roofers and remodelers who happen to have concrete debris from a side project

We've seen everything from a wheelbarrow load in an SUV to a tandem dump truck full of broken parking lot. No minimum, no maximum.

What Counts as "Concrete"?

We take clean concrete:

Broken sidewalks, patios, and driveway slabs
Foundation pieces and footings
Concrete block and CMU
Curbing and gutter pans
Washout from concrete trucks
Concrete with embedded rebar (we pull the steel during processing - no extra charge)
Concrete with light dirt or surface mortar attached

What we can't take: asphalt mixed with concrete, drywall, wood, trash, dirt by itself, or anything painted or contaminated. If you're not sure whether your material qualifies, call (865) 999-0857 before you load up. Rather answer a question on the phone than have you drive across the county with a load we can't take.

For the full rundown of what we do and don't accept, see our drop-off guide.

The Cost Difference Is Bigger Than You Think

Run the numbers. Say you're tearing out a 12 x 30 driveway slab. Call it 5 tons of broken concrete.

Blount County Landfill: 5 tons x $60 = $300
SMSG drop-off: Well under $300 - usually a fraction. Run your exact load through the calculator for the real figure.

Scale it up. A contractor doing 3 small demo jobs a week is averaging maybe 15 tons of disposal. At landfill prices that's $900 a week, or close to $45,000 a year, just in tipping fees. Switch to recycling at SMSG and that number drops fast. We laid out the full breakdown in our landfill vs. recycling cost post if you want it side by side.

What If My Load Is Mixed?

Honest answer: sort it on the job site if you can. Pull the clean concrete out and bring that to us at our lower rate. Take the wood, drywall, and other non-concrete debris to the landfill separately. A little sorting up front almost always saves money on the back end.

If sorting isn't realistic and you've got a mostly-concrete load with a small amount of trash mixed in, call before you come. We can usually work something out.

Why Recycling Beats Burying

Recycling your concrete does something useful with the material instead of burying it. We crush it down to recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) - the same gravel-like product contractors use for driveway base, road base, fill, and drainage. That old driveway you just tore out might end up under someone's new shop pad in a few weeks.

If your own project needs base material, you can buy RCA right here for less than virgin aggregate. Plenty of customers drop off a load of broken concrete and pick up a load of fresh RCA on the same trip.

Getting Here from Anywhere in Blount County

We're on Brookdale Rd in Maryville, easy to reach from anywhere in the Blount County service area:

From Alcoa: ~10 minutes
From Maryville (downtown): ~5 minutes
From Friendsville: ~15 minutes
From Walland and Townsend: 20-25 minutes
From Knoxville (south side): ~25 minutes

For most contractors, we're a shorter drive than the landfill - which means lower fuel cost and less crew time burned in transit.

First Time? Here's What to Expect

If you've never dropped off at a recycling yard before, the process is simple. We wrote up the full walkthrough in this guide for first-time droppers. Quick version: pull in, we point you to the dump area, you unload, we settle up, you leave. Most people are in and out in 15 to 20 minutes.

What To Take Away

If you searched for "Blount County dump" because you have concrete to get rid of, the landfill isn't the answer you actually want. The answer is a few miles down the road, and it'll cost you a fraction of what burying it in the ground would.

Bring your next load to Smoky Mountain Sand & Gravel at 245 Brookdale Rd, Maryville. Call (865) 999-0857 with questions, or show up during business hours. Hit our contact page if you want a quote on a specific load before you make the trip.

Stop paying landfill prices for material that doesn't belong in the landfill.

Where to Dump Concrete in Blount County (Without Paying $60/Ton at the Landfill)