Downloads
.Zip file includes 25 shapefiles, the DAT dbf table
and eleven ArcGIS 10.0 LYR files
Overview
New in 2016: Point features representing Recycling and Waste Conversion operations. Please see the Overview, Attributes and Spatial Views sections below for more details.
The Solid Waste Diversion and Disposal Datalayer was compiled by the Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) to track the locations of land disposal of solid waste. This statewide datalayer contains the majority of locations currently regulated under MassDEP's solid waste regulations (310 CMR 16.000 & 19.000).
Land Disposal refers to an operation established in accordance with a valid site assignment for the disposal of solid waste into or on land (Landfill), or a location for disposal of solid waste from one or more sources which is not established or maintained pursuant to a valid site assignment or permit (Dumping Ground).
Polygons in the datalayer include both landfills and dumping grounds. Data are stored in ArcSDE as two layers: SW_LD_POLY (polygons) and SW_LD_PT (point feature class, with one point for each polygon).
Please note, only a small fraction of the land disposal sites are active landfills. In addition, this datalayer does not contain all land disposal sites known to MassDEP. The MassDEP Bureau of Waste Site Cleanup and EPA Superfund Program manage former land disposal sites which fall under their regulatory purview. Waste site and mining classifications in the MassGIS Land Use datalayer and Map Unit Symbols 652 and 652E in the SSURGO Certified Soils datalayer may represent land disposal sites not found in the Solid Waste Diversion and Disposal Datalayer.
Transfer/handling, combustion and composting activities were represented as associated features of land disposal polygons until 2011, when they were first offered as separate point layers.
Since then, regulatory changes initiated in 2012 have built capacity for organic waste diversion. Beginning in 2016 locations for these operations, exempt from site assignment and permits pursuant to 310 CMR 19.000, became available. To better understand diversion-related regulatory changes, helpful definitions can be found in Section 16.02 of the Solid Waste Site Assignment Regulations. The Anaerobic Digestion & Organics Diversion page on mass.gov/dep may also be of interest.
Manuscript
The MassDEP Diversion and Disposal of Solid Waste datalayer (formerly named "Land Disposal of Solid Waste") was originally digitized from USGS Quadrangle maps (1:25,000) filed as part of the siting (310 CMR 16.00) or operating permit (310 CMR 19.00) requirements for landfills. It has been updated as described below.
Methodology
1994 and earlier: DEP regional office files were searched for locus maps and site plans which designated the location of solid waste facilities. In some cases the facility footprint was located on the map; in other instances a generalized location (point or polygon) was noted. These were hand-drawn onto a master set of USGS topographic quadrangle maps from which the datalayer was digitized. In the absence of a landfill footprint, point locations were buffered to reflect permitted or reported acreage (when insufficient data was available, 29.9 acres was used). When possible, these buffered point locations were updated with polygons from MassGIS 1985 Land Use data.
1997-2008: Locus maps and site plans from regional and Boston office files were automated directly into Arc/Info while using scanned USGS quads &/or digital orthophotos as background images. Point locations were buffered as described above; several of these point locations were collected using global positioning system technology (GPS). Several polygons were copied from the Protected and Recreational Open Space and Land Use (2005) Datalayers.
2009 and beyond: GPS, parcel data, Pictometry (oblique view or "bird's eye" imagery), current/historical topographic maps and ortho imagery are being used to locate unmapped features and refine existing ones.
Attributes
POLYGONS and POINTS - Feature attributes associated with both polygons and points include:
| FIELD | TYPE-WIDTH | DEFINITION |
| RO_ACCT | LONG – 4/10 | Site ID from Facility Master File (FMF) Database |
| SITE_NAME | C – 45 / 45 | Site Name from FMF Database |
| ADDRESS | C – 38 / 38 | Site Address from FMF Database |
| TOWN | C – 21 / 21 | MassGIS Municipality name |
| REGION | T – 6 / 6 | MassDEP Region abbreviation (in views, not in attribute table) |
MassDEP maintains operational status, location, operation type, capacity, and contacts in its Facility Master File (FMF) database. An extract of Solid Waste data from FMF is available on MassDEP's website: https://www.mass.gov/lists/massachusetts-landfills-transfer-stations-compost-sites-recycling-facilities, under the heading “Massachusetts Solid Waste Facilities Master List”. Facility information is linked to the GIS datalayer via the RO_ACCT. Selected land disposal polygon attributes shown below are included where appropriate, for ease of use.
POLYGONS - Additional attributes from SW Facility Master List
| FIELD | TYPE-WIDTH | DEFINITION |
| ACRES | DOUBLE | Acreage of polygon representing landfill/dumping ground |
| CAP_STATUS | C – 10 / 10 | LF: Capped, Excavated, Incomplete; DG: Complete, Incomplete |
| CATGRPGIS | C – 20 / 20 | Land Disposal – LF (landfill) or - DG (dumping ground) |
| LF_LINER | C – 10 / 10 | LF: Lined, Not lined, unknown; DG: N/A |
| STATUS | C – 10 / 10 | Active, Inactive, Closed |
| SW_ID | C – 10 / 10 | Solid Waste Facility ID (historical identifier may be NULL for some records) |
| TYPE_OPER | C – 10 / 10 | Contact Organization Type: District, Federal, Municipal, Private, State |
| TYPE_RSP | C – 10 / 10 | Responsible Party Org Type: District, Federal, Individual, Municipal, Private, State |
| WASTE_TYPE | C – 10 / 10 | Type of waste deposited: Ash, C&D Waste, MSW, Sludge, Tires, Woodwaste |
Waste Types defined:
| ASH | Residual from combustion, includes MSW, oil, coal, & wood ash. |
| C&D WASTE | Construction & Demolition Waste. |
| MSW | Municipal Solid Waste |
| SLUDGE | Residual from treatment of gasses or fluids, includes industrial & water treatment sludges. |
| TIRES | Whole, cut, shredded, or chipped car or truck tires. |
| WOODWASTE | Trees, brush, sawdust, chips, bark and shavings, excluding milled lumber |
POINTS - The data structure for point features mimics that of the BWP Major Facilities Datalayer.
In addition to feature attributes associated with both points and polygons, point attributes include the identifiers FAC_ID and ROOT_ID which can be used to associate features with other point layers, including the BWP Major Facilities and Underground Storage Tanks datalayers. Handling Facility and site assignment exempt operations additionally include a “classification type code” summarizing permit categories and types of solid waste activities permitted at these locations.
CLASS_TYPE_CODEs for Handling Facilities requiring site assignment (BWP_PT_HF_WWCOOTH):
| CMPOST | Site Assigned Composting Facility |
| LGHNDL | Large Handling facility |
| SMHNDL | Small Handling facility |
CLASS_TYPE_CODEs for site assignment exempt Recycling, Composting and Conversion “RCC” operations (BWP_PT_COMPOST, BWP_PT_OPX_RECY_CONV):
| GPCMPT | General Permit Composting |
| GPDGST | General Permit Aerobic/Anaerobic Digesting |
| GPRECY | General Permit Recycling |
| IPCNVR | Individual Permit – Converting RCC |
| IPRECY | Individual Permit – Recycling RCC |
Spatial Views
Land Disposal Operations Using the polygon layer SW_LD_POLY and SW_LD_POLY_DAT table, 15 spatial views (selected sets of features) were created in ArcSDE. These views are distributed as separate shapefiles along with the full layers and tables in the download at the top of this page. The views are named as follows:
| SW_LD_POLY_ACTIVE SW_LD_POLY_ASH SW_LD_POLY_CAPINCOMPLETE SW_LD_POLY_CAPPED SW_LD_POLY_CLOSED SW_LD_POLY_DEMOLITION SW_LD_POLY_DUMPINGGROUND SW_LD_POLY_INACTIVE |
SW_LD_POLY_LANDFILLS SW_LD_POLY_LINED SW_LD_POLY_LINERNONE SW_LD_POLY_LINERUNKNOWN SW_LD_POLY_MSW SW_LD_POLY_SLUDGE SW_LD_POLY_WOODWASTE |
Solid Waste Operations other than Land Disposal
Using an in-house development point layer and MassDEP Facility Master File Regulated Objects table, seven spatial views (selected sets of features) were created in ArcSDE. These views are distributed as separate shapefiles in the download at the top of this page. The views are as follows:
BWP_PT_COMBUSTION (active combustion facilities with resource recovery)
BWP_PT_COMBUSTION_HISTORIC (inactive, historic incinerators)
BWP_PT_COMPOST (site assignment exempt, general permit composting operations)
BWP_PT_HF_CD_PROC (handling facilities: construction & demolition processors)
BWP_PT_HF_TRAN_SM (handling facilities: small transfer stations < 50 tons/day)
BWP_PT_HF_TRANSFER (handling facilities: large transfer stations, 50 tons/day or more/day)
BWP_PT_HF_WWCOOTH (handling facilities: woodwaste, compost, other)
BWP_PT_OPX_RECY_CONV (site assignment exempt recycling and waste conversion operations)
Location Documentation
Land Disposal location metadata are stored within the SW_LD_PT and SW_LD_POLY attribute tables. See DEP Standards for GIS Data for details. Polygon methods of data input are additionally coded as follows:
| DIG-METHOD | Description | Number of Polygons |
| F | Footprint digitized from USGS quadrangle or digital orthophoto | 518 |
| PAR | Polygon(s) copied from MassGIS Property Tax Parcels Datalayer | 55 |
| P | Point digitized from USGS quadrangle or digital orthophoto | 35 |
| UTM | Point located by UTM coordinates | 30 |
| SOI | NRCS SSURGO-Certified Soils polygon | 13 |
| LU | Polygon copied from MassGIS Land Use Datalayer | 6 |
| GPS | Perimeter or front gate points collected with GPS | 3 |
| GEO | Surficial Geology artificial fill polygon | 2 |
| OS | Polygon copied from MassGIS Protected and Recreational Open Space Datalayer |
Maintenance
Please note: although the MassDEP Bureau of Waste Prevention (BWP) has been reorganized as the Bureau of Air and Waste (BAW), the BWP prefix has been maintained in the naming convention of layers in our geodatabase.
The MassDEP-Bureau of Air and Waste is maintaining this datalayer.
In 2011 the datalayer was redesigned and feature level attribution increased. Land Disposal sites continued to be represented as polygons. Solid Waste Operations other than Land Disposal were represented as points rather than associated features of a land disposal polygon. [Every transfer station and combustion facility is not necessarily within or adjacent to a landfill. Rather than creating polygons for features mapped as points in other layers, these “other than land disposal” activities were mapped as standalone features.] This structure persists in the 2013 and 2016 updates.
2011 modifications as follows:
- Active and historical COMBUSTION facilities, TRANSFER and registered COMPOST sites represented as points
- Active HANDLING/TRANSFER point views replace TRANSFER:
- BWP_PT_HF_CD_PROC (construction and demolition processors),
- BWP_PT_HF_TRAN_SM (small transfer stations),
- BWP_PT_HF_TRANSFER (large transfer stations),
- BWP_PT_HF_WWCOOTH (wood waste, compost and/or other waste handling operations)
- Polygon Views renamed: EPIC now DUMPINGGROUND; NOTLINED now LINERNONE; PARTIALLYCAPPED and NOTCAPPED rolled into new view CAPINCOMPLETE; STUMP now WOODWASTE
- Polygon Views deleted: LINERUNKNOWN, OTHER, RECYCLING, UNKNOWNCAP
2016 feature/attribute edits as follows:
- 3 new polys
- 53 polys redrawn
- 1 polygon ID edit
- 8 General Permit Composting Operations added (BWP_PT_COMPOST)
- 44 Recycling, Digestion and Waste Conversion sites mapped (new layer: BWP_PT_OPX_RECY_CONV)