Texas Inventory of Closed Municipal Solid Waste Landfills

The Closed Landfill Inventory is Texas's list of old municipal solid waste landfills that are no longer in use. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), working with the state's 24 regional councils of governments, located approximately 4,200 closed and abandoned municipal solid waste landfills. The councils of governments now maintain the inventories.

In a Phase I ESA

The inventory is a Texas landfill record, read like the state landfill and solid waste disposal site records that ASTM E1527-21 lists as a standard source. The general reading of a landfill listing is on the landfills and solid waste page.

Four Texas details shape how to read it.

• It covers what the permit files do not. TCEQ's historical file lists old, closed, unnumbered landfills that operated before permits were required, along with unauthorized landfills and miscellaneous illegal dumps and disposal sites. Permitted facilities are a separate record, the Municipal Solid Waste facilities files.
• TCEQ's copy is frozen. TCEQ publishes the inventory as it was delivered to the councils of governments in the late 1990s, and says the file is not updated.
• The current inventory is regional. Each council of governments includes its inventory in its regional solid waste management plan and is responsible for maintaining it. For a closed landfill question in a given county, TCEQ says to contact the council of governments for that county.
• Building over one has rules. The inventory exists because of a 1993 law on the development and use of land over closed municipal solid waste landfills. TCEQ publishes requirements for using land over a closed landfill.

The 1993 law is House Bill 2537 of the 73rd Legislature. The requirement that regional plans include the inventory is in Texas Health and Safety Code section 363.064.

Where to look a site up

• The historical file is on TCEQ's Data on Municipal Solid Waste Facilities page, under historical information.
• TCEQ's Inventory of Closed Municipal Solid Waste Landfills page links the list of councils of governments and the requirements for using land over a closed landfill.
• For closed landfill questions, TCEQ gives its Waste Permits Division at 512-239-2335.

Sources

Texas Commission on Environmental Quality pages, read September 30, 2026:

• Inventory of Closed Municipal Solid Waste Landfills, last modified March 3, 2026.
• Data on Municipal Solid Waste Facilities in Texas, last modified November 10, 2025.