Wisconsin dumpster and disposal rules
Wisconsin stacks four separate statutory fees onto every ton that enters a licensed landfill. That stack is why a Fox Valley quote does not look like a quote from a state with one fee. Part of the gate rate your hauler pays is set by statute rather than by the landfill operator, and it applies statewide.
How Wisconsin controls what you can throw away
Chapter 289 of the Wisconsin statutes imposes fees on solid waste disposal in four separate places: a tonnage fee, a groundwater and well compensation fee, a recycling fee, and an environmental repair fee with its own surcharge. The groundwater fee is written to sit on top of the others rather than replace them. The practical consequence for anyone renting a container in Wisconsin is that the gate rate your hauler pays is not one number set by a landfill operator — part of it is set by statute and applies statewide.
Citation: Wis. Stat. ch. 289
The statutory fees on every ton
| Fee | Statute |
|---|---|
| Tonnage fee | s. 289.62(1) |
| Groundwater and well compensation fee | s. 289.63 |
| Recycling fee | s. 289.645 |
| Environmental repair base fee and surcharge | s. 289.67(3)–(4) |
Why the amounts are not on this page
We are not publishing the per-ton amounts. The DNR maintains the current schedule as a single document, wisconsin.gov could not be reached from our build environment to read it, and a fee figure copied from a rental company instead of the regulator is exactly the kind of claim this site exists to stop repeating. Get the current amounts from the DNR schedule directly.
Sources
- Primary source Wis. Stat. ch. 289 — Solid Waste Facilities — Wisconsin State Legislature · last reviewed 2026-08-17
Section numbers and the existence of each fee were confirmed through the legislature’s own statute index. Per-ton amounts were not published from this source.