Operating Solid Waste Processing Facilities

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources defines a solid waste processing facility as any facility where solid waste is moved from one container to another, or processed. It lists the work done there as moving waste between containers or vehicles, combining loads before they go to a landfill, separating waste for recycling or disposal, recovering items for sale or reuse, treating waste to kill pathogens, and burning waste for disposal or energy. The types it names are compost plants, incinerators, infectious waste facilities, transfer stations and material recovery facilities.

In a Phase I ESA

ASTM E1527-21 lists state landfill and solid waste disposal site records as a standard source, and in Missouri those are the Operating Solid Waste Landfills and Inactive and Closed Solid Waste Landfills lists. The department keeps its processing facilities on a separate list, as places where waste is transferred or processed, so the handbook does not pair this list with that record type. A processing facility on or next to the property still means waste was handled there. Four Missouri details shape how to read the list.

• It names currently permitted facilities. The department's page sorts each category's facilities by county and calls them the facilities currently permitted to operate. For a facility that has closed, see the map below.
• Two types need no permit now. The department says no solid waste incinerator or compost facility currently has to operate under a solid waste processing facility permit. The page lists three categories: transfer stations, material recovery facilities and infectious waste facilities.
• Some recyclers may be exempt. The department says a material recovery facility that takes only source-separated material, all of which can be reused, recycled or processed into new products, and produces no waste may be allowed to operate without a processing permit. If waste is mixed into what comes in, or the facility produces waste, it must hold a permit. Where a recycling operation sits near the property, check which of those it is, since the list is of permitted facilities.
• Transfer stations hold waste briefly. The department describes a transfer station as a place where waste is unloaded from collection containers into a different container, or stored briefly inside, before it is hauled to a permitted disposal facility. The department's publication Missouri Solid Waste Transfer Stations, PUB2152, says more.

Infectious waste facilities either transfer infectious waste to larger trucks for disposal elsewhere or treat it so it is no longer infectious. The department defines infectious waste as waste with pathogens strong and numerous enough that a person who comes in contact with it could get an infectious disease.

Where to look a site up

• The department's Operating Solid Waste Processing Facilities page lists the facilities in each category by county.
• The department's Missouri Solid Waste Management map, which the page says offers an interactive map of every permitted processing facility and a downloadable list of them. The page says a table of all solid waste facilities in Missouri opens under the "expand" tab at the bottom center of the map. The department's Closed and Long-Term Stewardship (LTS) Sites page links the same map as an interactive map of operating and closed solid waste processing facilities and landfills.
• The Waste Management Program takes questions on a specific facility, at 573-751-5401 and wmp@dnr.mo.gov.

Getting the file

The pages read do not give a records route specific to processing facilities. The department's general route is the Sunshine Law request.

Sources

Missouri Department of Natural Resources page, read October 16, 2026, no modified date shown:

• Operating Solid Waste Processing Facilities

Missouri Department of Natural Resources page, read October 8, 2026, no modified date shown:

• Closed and Long-Term Stewardship (LTS) Sites