The big business that is trash has become a hot-button item in South Carolina.

DontDumpOnSC.org is running television ads with “Anthony,” a New York City boy, thanking us for taking their garbage. “We can have mountains of garbage stinking up Staten Island – and we can unload it on youse cheap, since you don’t mind making your state a dump.”

DontDumpOnSC.org is a coalition “committed to protecting the beauty of our state from Big Trash, who want to turn us into the nation’s dumping ground.”

The coalition includes the Coastal Conservation League, the Sierra Club, the SC Wildlife Federation, the SC Association of Counties, the League of Women Voters, Conservative Voices of SC and Audubon South Carolina.

Laurens County Council Chairman Jim Coleman warned his fellow council members in February that a law passed by the S.C. House and sent to the Senate would change the way counties can deal with solid waste.

Laurens County Public Works Director Scott Holland said the law takes away from counties the right to say all solid waste generated in a county has to be disposed of in the landfill run by, or designated by, a county.

Coleman said the waste companies – the big boys is how he referred to them – operate mega-landfills and they want to be able to accept solid waste from anywhere.

Hence, the televised “thank you” from The Big Apple’s Anthony.

Laurens County state Sen. Danny Verdin chairs one of the committees that will consider the House-passed legislation when the General Assembly reconvenes in January.

If the bill is signed into law by Gov. Haley, opponents warn, landfills financed by taxpayers will be at risk financially. The money borrowed to build these landfills is expected to be repaid by money from tipping fees. If less trash is taken to public landfills, there will be less revenue generated and the taxpayers could be left on the hook.

If public landfills become unsustainable, the only alternative would be private landfills.

“The private business model for landfills is to fill them as fast as possible and to mound the landfill as high as physically possible,” says DontDumponSC.org. “Out of state waste generators pay higher fees than South Carolina residents to dispose of waste destined for South Carolina, even after transportation costs are taken into consideration. The result is that out of state waste customers are highly desirable for a private landfill operator.”

And this is not a fight for your kitchen trash. Waste Management, the industry leader, has annual revenue in excess of $15 billion. The annual revenue of Allied Waste Industries is approaching $10 billion.

Waste Management, which has 22,000 collection and transfer trucks, is the largest environmental solutions provider in North America.

Opening our state to more out-of-state waste will negatively impact us all, DontDumponSC.org warns.

The big waste companies are writing the law, Council Chairman Coleman said in February. “Those companies donate to a lot of campaigns. That’s where this comes from.”