Is concrete recycling cheaper than landfill disposal?

Almost always, and often by a lot. Blount County Landfill runs around $60 a ton for concrete. Under our current grand-opening promo at SMSG's Maryville yard, inbound concrete is free. On a 25-ton driveway tear-out, that's a $1,500 delta before you count fuel or drive time.

What does 'clean concrete' mean at a recycling yard?

Concrete with rebar and wire mesh embedded is fine. What we reject is trash, dirt, wood, drywall, tile with mastic, painted concrete in bulk, and anything with hazardous coatings. If in doubt, call before you load.

Do landfills prefer that you skip them for concrete?

Publicly no, quietly yes. Concrete is dense and takes up airspace that could be filled with lower-value waste. Some counties have added tipping surcharges on inert C&D loads specifically to steer them toward recycling.

Can recycled concrete count toward LEED credits?

Yes. Recycled Content and Construction Waste Management credits both accept diverted concrete. Get a weight ticket from the recycling yard, keep it in the project's LEED binder, and it counts against the diversion target.

How far will contractors drive to save on disposal?

For a 20-yard-plus load, most of the Blount, Knox, and Sevier County contractors we see will add 15 to 30 minutes of drive time to skip a tipping fee. The math flips once the fee gap drops below about $40 per ton.

What happens to concrete after it's dropped off?

At our yard it gets stockpiled, magnet-swept for rebar, run through a crusher, and screened into recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) sold as driveway base, road sub-base, and drainage stone. The rebar goes to metal recycling.

Does recycling concrete really reduce emissions?

Yes. Every ton of RCA produced offsets a ton of quarried virgin aggregate, which avoids the emissions from blasting, crushing at a distant quarry, and the long-distance haul. Local recycling also cuts on-truck miles significantly.

Do I need to separate the rebar before I bring it in?

No. We accept concrete with rebar attached and extract it on our side. Sawing off protruding pieces that stick out more than a foot or so helps the trucks load safely, but full extraction is not required.

Concrete Recycling vs Landfill Disposal: What Contractors Should Know

TL;DR: For a Tennessee contractor, the recycling-vs-landfill decision is usually simple math. Blount County Landfill is about $60 a ton for concrete. At SMSG's Maryville yard, inbound concrete is free under the current grand-opening promo. On top of the cost gap, you get a diversion weight ticket useful for LEED credit and a shorter drive from most Blount, Knox, and Sevier County job sites. Use the tear-out calculator to see the full cost side-by-side.

There was a time when the only realistic option for a demolished slab was the county landfill. That's not true anymore in East Tennessee. Recycling yards took over the C&D concrete stream in most of the country a decade ago, and the last few holdouts in this region are catching up. For contractors, the switch is worth understanding, because it changes the disposal line on your bid.

The cost gap is the headline

Everything else is a nice bonus. The cost gap is the reason contractors switched.

Landfill disposal in East Tennessee, 2026:

Blount County Landfill: roughly $60/ton for clean concrete
Knox County transfer stations: similar range, some tiered by load type
Sevier County Landfill: comparable, with clean-load discounts for separated concrete
Riverside C&D in Knoxville: private facility with its own posted rates

Recycling at SMSG Maryville, 2026:

Inbound concrete: free under the current grand-opening special
Inbound asphalt: free
Weight ticket provided on request

A single 20-yard roll-off carrying 12 tons of broken slab is $720 in tipping fees at the landfill. On a 30-yard hauling closer to 20 tons, it's $1,200. Multiply that across a season of tear-outs and it becomes real money on your P&L.

Even after the current promo ends, our long-term tipping fee will remain well below landfill rates, because our economics are different. We sell the finished product. The landfill just buries it.

What the two options actually offer

A landfill and a recycling yard are not the same product with different pricing. They're different services.

At the landfill

Accepts almost any C&D waste on the truck (concrete, wood, drywall, insulation, roofing).
Charges per ton or per cubic yard, depending on facility.
Buries the material.
No downstream product.
Diversion counts as zero for LEED and green rating systems.

At a concrete/asphalt recycling yard

Accepts clean concrete and asphalt only. Trash, wood, tile, drywall get turned away.
Charges a tipping fee, sometimes zero, sometimes below landfill rate.
Crushes and screens the material into recycled aggregate.
Sells the finished RCA into new construction as base, sub-base, and drainage stone.
Weight ticket counts toward LEED diversion.

The trade-off: recycling yards can't take your mixed C&D dumpster. You have to separate the concrete on-site. For most contractors this is already how the load is staged, so it isn't extra work.

Why landfills still accept concrete at all

Landfills are running out of the one thing they sell: airspace. Concrete is the worst possible material to bury from their perspective, because it's dense, inert, and permanent. A cubic yard of concrete takes up the same airspace as a cubic yard of household trash but generates none of the same tipping revenue per volume.

Several Tennessee counties have quietly added inert-waste surcharges specifically to push concrete out of the landfill and toward recycling. Others have kept the price competitive because they need the tonnage to hit their host-fee targets. Either way, the incentive at the landfill isn't lined up with contractor economics.

The math from our side is different. We want the tonnage because we sell what comes out the other end. That alignment is why recycling yards can offer better rates.

Sustainability that actually holds up

Some sustainability claims in construction don't survive a second look. Concrete recycling isn't one of those. The numbers are boring but real.

Emissions per ton avoided. Producing a ton of virgin crushed stone requires drilling, blasting, primary crushing, secondary crushing, screening, and stockpiling at a quarry. Then the truck haul. Roughly 4 to 7 kg of CO2 per ton of aggregate, depending on quarry distance. Recycling on-site or near-site cuts most of that.

Quarry footprint avoided. East Tennessee's quarries are permitted acreage. Every ton of RCA that goes into a driveway base is a ton the quarry doesn't need to pull out of the ground.

Landfill airspace preserved. Concrete diverted to recycling is not sitting in an inert cell forever. It's back in service, usually within weeks, as a base course or drainage layer somewhere else in the region.

Truck miles reduced. Local recycling means shorter one-way hauls than long trips to distant quarries. TDOT loves this because it takes construction traffic off the interstates. Contractors love it because fuel is fuel.

None of this is unique to us. It's the same story at every credible recycling operation. But the specifics matter when you're writing sustainability language into a project narrative or LEED submission.

The LEED angle

For contractors on projects pursuing LEED certification, concrete recycling ticks two boxes:

Materials and Resources: Construction and Demolition Waste Management. You need to divert a target percentage of C&D waste from landfill. Concrete is usually the heaviest single stream on a demo job, so diverting it moves the diversion percentage more than any other decision. Weight tickets from the recycling yard are the documentation reviewers ask for.

Materials and Resources: Recycled Content (on the rebuild side). If you're using RCA as base rock for the new pavement or foundation, the recycled content counts toward the credit. A base course of #57-equivalent RCA under a new slab is a low-friction way to hit this.

We've written a deeper piece on this in Using Recycled Aggregate for LEED Points: A Contractor's Guide. If you're bidding LEED work in the Knoxville corridor, that piece walks through the exact submission language.

What SMSG accepts vs rejects

Same rules as every reputable recycling yard.

Yes:

Broken slabs, sidewalks, driveways
Foundation walls, footings
Curb and gutter
Asphalt millings and slab
Concrete with embedded rebar or wire mesh
Chunks of any size up to what a small excavator can move

No:

Loads mixed with wood, drywall, insulation, roofing, tile, glass
Painted concrete in bulk (small painted pieces mixed in are usually fine)
Concrete contaminated with fuel, oil, or hazardous coatings
Dirt and clay in significant volume
Anything with asbestos in it

If you're not sure, call (865) 999-0857 before loading. We'd rather turn a truck around at the gate than crush contaminated material into a product we can't sell.

Where the yards are

The Maryville yard at 245 Brookdale Rd sits about 8 minutes off US-129 in Alcoa. Most Blount County jobs are 5 to 20 minutes out. Knoxville, Farragut, and Karns jobs come in via I-140 or Alcoa Highway, typically 25 to 40 minutes. Sevierville and Pigeon Forge jobs run US-411, 45 to 60 minutes.

Compared to hauling the same load to Blount County Landfill on Bowers Ln, we're closer for most Alcoa and Rockford jobs, roughly equal for downtown Maryville and Louisville, and slightly farther for Friendsville. In every case the tipping-fee savings covers the drive delta and then some.

For Knox County contractors, hauling to Maryville is competitive with in-Knox landfill or transfer options once you factor in tipping. For Sevier County, we're usually the best option in every direction because the local landfill charges more per ton and is not much closer.

A concrete example: 15-ton tear-out in Farragut

A contractor in Farragut tears out a residential driveway pad. About 15 tons of broken concrete, all clean, mixed rebar and wire mesh.

Landfill route (Knox County transfer station):

Haul: 1 dump truck trip, ~$425 to move it across town
Tipping: 15 tons x $60 = $900
Total disposal cost: $1,325

SMSG route (haul to Maryville):

Haul: 1 dump truck trip at Knox County rate, $425
Tipping: $0 under current promo
Total disposal cost: $425

That's $900 back on the job for the same tear-out. On a residential driveway rebuild that's often the difference between a competitive bid and a losing one.

You can price your own version of this on the tear-out calculator or the gravel calculator if you're also pricing the rebuild aggregate. Full material list is on the materials page.

What "contractor account" changes

If you're bringing more than a few tear-out loads per year, set up a contractor account. Right now with free inbound the account mainly gets you streamlined gate flow (no manual ticket every visit), consolidated invoicing for the outbound aggregate side, and net-30 terms once approved. Once inbound tipping returns to normal after the promo, contractor account holders get better volume pricing than walk-ins. Details on the contractor account setup guide or request a quote.

What contractors get wrong

"The landfill is closer, it's cheaper." Sometimes true on drive time, almost never true on total cost once you add tipping. Run the math on the specific load size before assuming.

"Recycling only takes small loads." We take 30-yard roll-offs and full 15-ton dump trucks all day. Big loads are easier for us than small ones, if anything.

"You'll charge me for rebar." No. Rebar is included. We extract it on our end and it goes to metal recycling.

"I can't get a weight ticket." You can. Ask at the gate and we'll print one before you leave.

"Recycling adds project time." It doesn't. Load-out is identical. The only difference is the address the truck drives to.

When landfill still makes sense

To be honest: sometimes it does.

Truly mixed C&D loads. If your dumpster has drywall, wood, tile, and concrete all together, we can't take it. Landfill or a mixed-waste facility is your answer.
Contaminated concrete. Painted-lot loads, oil-soaked shop floors, or concrete near a suspected environmental site should go through the proper hazardous-material path, not to a recycling yard.
Extreme distances. If you're 90 minutes east of Maryville and the local landfill is 15 minutes away, the drive economics can flip on a small load.

For everything else, and that's the vast majority of East Tennessee concrete tear-out, the recycling yard is the answer.