Midland Waste and Debris, by the Numbers

Last reviewed 2026-07-25. Journalists, researchers, and community groups are welcome to cite any figure on this page with attribution and a link.

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Population, households and the churn behind residential cleanouts

The U.S. Census Bureau puts Midland city at 147,615 residents as of July 1, 2025, an 11.1 percent increase over the April 2020 census count. In a city this size that growth is overwhelmingly move-ins rather than natural increase, and a move generates two jobs rather than one: something has to be cleared at the property being left, and something usually has to be cleared to make room at the property being filled.

The figures underneath the headline do more work than the population total. Midland has 53,414 households at 2.53 people each, and that is the ceiling on residential demand here, because every garage, attic and shed in the city belongs to one of them. Owner-occupancy sits at 65.1 percent, so close to 35 percent of Midland households are renters. Rental turnover is a different kind of hauling job: it runs on a landlord deadline rather than a homeowner convenience, it happens year-round, and it repeats.

Density matters for a quieter reason. Midland covers 75.45 square miles and recorded 1,756 people per square mile in 2020, spread out by national standards and compact by West Texas ones. The consequence is short drive times between jobs and disposal sites, so transport is a smaller share of a Midland quote than in a market where a loaded truck spends an hour getting anywhere.

Median owner-occupied home value is $319,200 and median gross rent $1,434. A unit turning over at that rent loses roughly $47 a day sitting full of a departed tenant belongings, which is usually the arithmetic that decides between a paid haul and a free city pickup on a rotation.

Measure	Figure	Vintage
Population estimate	147,615	July 1, 2025 (V2025)
Population change since April 1, 2020	+11.1%	2020 to 2025
Households	53,414	2020-2024 ACS
Persons per household	2.53	2020-2024 ACS
Owner-occupied housing unit rate	65.1%	2020-2024 ACS
Median value, owner-occupied home	$319,200	2020-2024 ACS
Median gross rent	$1,434	2020-2024 ACS
Median household income	$89,585	2020-2024, in 2024 dollars
Land area	75.45 sq mi	2020
Population per square mile	1,756.4	2020

U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts, Midland city, Texas.

What the city collects free, and what ends up in a landfill

The honest starting point is the city program, because a share of what people pay to have hauled does not need to be paid for. The City of Midland collects residential garbage twice a week, Monday and Thursday or Tuesday and Friday depending on the route, and picks up bulk items at no additional charge for residential solid waste customers. Bulk collection is request-based rather than calendared: it runs by call order, and items must go in the alley within the city right-of-way, not on private property.

The exclusions are the whole reason a private hauling market exists here. The city takes household bulk on its own timetable, refuses everything a remodel or tear-off produces, and sends nobody inside a house. When the material is a couch and the deadline is flexible, the city program is the right answer and costs nothing beyond the utility bill. When it is drywall, shingles or fencing, or the deadline is a closing, it is not an option.

Everything the city will not take, plus everything a private container carries, is measured in the same statewide accounting. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality reported 41,321,494 tons of municipal solid waste disposed in Texas landfills in fiscal year 2024, covering September 2023 through August 2024, at a rate of 7.24 pounds per person per day.

The construction and demolition line is worth reading twice. C&D material made up 23.17 percent of everything buried in Texas that year, 9,572,446 tons. TCEQ notes that the Texas definition of municipal solid waste includes C&D waste where the federal EPA definition does not, which is why the state per-capita figure runs high against national comparisons. Close to one ton in four crossing a Texas scale house is a tear-off, a strip-out or a slab.

Regionally, the Permian Basin council of governments area landfilled 897,555 tons in FY2024, about 2.2 percent of the state total, against remaining regional capacity TCEQ puts at roughly 50 years. Statewide reserve is about 51 years, so disposal access is not a near-term constraint on pricing. Applied to Midland 147,615 residents, the statewide per-capita rate projects to roughly 195,000 tons a year, which is arithmetic on two cited figures rather than a measured local total.

Measure	Figure	Period
MSW disposed in Texas landfills	41,321,494 tons	FY2024
Per-capita disposal rate	7.24 lb per person per day	FY2024
Construction and demolition share of disposal	23.17% (9,572,446 tons)	FY2024
MSW disposed, Permian Basin COG region	897,555 tons	FY2024
Statewide remaining landfill capacity	about 51 years	FY2024
Permian Basin region remaining capacity	about 50 years	FY2024

TCEQ, Municipal Solid Waste in Texas: A Year in Review, 2024 Data Summary and Analysis (AS-187/25). Fiscal year runs September 1, 2023 to August 31, 2024.

• Accepted for City of Midland bulk pickup: couches, chairs, bed frames, refrigerators, freezers, washers and dryers, water heaters, window A/C units, BBQ grills, patio furniture and swing sets
• Not accepted: tires, vehicle batteries, barrels of oil and similar materials
• Not accepted: tree limbs and construction debris. Yard waste routes to the city Citizens Collection Station, and unauthorized setout of construction material is treated as illegal dumping.
• Alley container service is shared, with one container set for every four to five residents
• The city also supplies 30-cubic-yard open-top construction containers on request, billed to the water account
• Vehicles hauling to the landfill without a valid Garbage Hauler Permit pay a $25 landfill access fee on top of regular landfill charges

Wind, dust and rain: the numbers that decide whether a container gets covered

On 22 April 2025 the National Weather Service office at Midland/Odessa recorded a peak wind gust of 111 mph from the southwest, driven by a virga downburst. It is the highest gust in a Midland record that reaches back to 1960, and an outlier by any measure. What makes wind an operating constraint in this market is not the outlier, though. It is the floor.

Every month of the year carries a peak gust record of at least 59 mph, and eleven of the twelve sit at 63 mph or higher. NOAA climatic wind data for the United States lists Midland annual mean wind speed at 11 mph with a prevailing southerly flow. A steady 11 mph moves nothing. The point is that the distribution has a long tail, the tail arrives with little warning, and it arrives most often in spring, which is also when garages get emptied and roofs get replaced.

Precipitation runs the other direction and changes the arithmetic of a load. Midland long-term average annual precipitation is 13.51 inches. Debris here rarely gets rained heavy, which keeps loads closer to their dry densities than in wetter parts of Texas and makes weight estimates more reliable. What replaces water is dust. Anything staged outdoors overnight during a blowing-dust event collects it. That is a real cost on a cleanout, where a donation or resale pile loses value the moment it turns grey, and light material leaves an uncovered container entirely rather than merely getting dirty.

Month	Peak gust	Direction	Date
January	63 mph	Northwest	January 2, 2023
February	67 mph	South	February 9, 1960
March	74 mph	West	March 27, 1984
April	111 mph	Southwest	April 22, 2025
May	76 mph	North-northwest	May 16, 2024
June	93 mph	North	June 26, 2007
July	82 mph	Southwest	July 18, 1987
August	64 mph	Southwest	August 18, 1997
September	82 mph	Southwest	September 28, 1985
October	69 mph	North	October 11, 1986
November	59 mph	West	November 15, 1988
December	63 mph	West	December 8, 2009

NWS Midland/Odessa monthly wind records, period of record 1960 to 2025.

Permian Basin activity and the commercial debris behind it

Commercial and industrial hauling demand in Midland tracks the Basin, and the Basin is measurable month to month. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported the Permian producing 6.0 million barrels per day of crude oil from tight formations in December 2025, which was 44 percent of total U.S. crude oil production, alongside 22.2 billion cubic feet per day of dry natural gas. On a geographic rather than a formation basis, the region produced 6.7 million barrels per day of crude.

Drilling activity localizes that to the city. The Railroad Commission of Texas issued 504 original drilling permits statewide in December 2025, of which 464 were for new oil or gas wells. District 8, headquartered in Midland, took 237 of those new-well permits, just over half the statewide total, and logged 297 new oil completions and 100 new gas completions in the same month. No other district in Texas came close.

What that activity produces for a hauler is not oilfield waste. Drilling and production wastes are regulated separately under Railroad Commission rules and move through their own permitted disposal stream. What it produces is everything around the activity: office and retail fit-outs along Loop 250 and Business 20 as service companies expand and contract, warehouse and laydown-yard clearing, pallets and crates by the truckload, equipment-yard scrap metal, and residential turnover as workforce arrives and leaves on a schedule set by permit counts rather than the school calendar.

That is why commercial container demand moves on a different cycle from residential cleanout demand, and why lead times stretch for everybody at once. A heavy permitting quarter puts contractor containers and homeowner haul-aways in competition for the same trucks across the Midland and Odessa corridor.

Measure	Figure	Period
Permian crude oil production, tight formations	6.0 million barrels per day	December 2025
Permian share of total U.S. crude oil production	44%	December 2025
Permian dry natural gas production	22.2 Bcf per day	December 2025
Permian region crude oil, geographic basis	6.7 million barrels per day	December 2025
Original drilling permits issued, Texas statewide	504	December 2025
New oil or gas well permits, statewide	464	December 2025
New oil or gas well permits, RRC District 8 (Midland)	237	December 2025
New oil completions, District 8	297	December 2025
New gas completions, District 8	100	December 2025

Production figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration; permit and completion figures from the Railroad Commission of Texas release dated January 30, 2026.

Sources & Methodology

Every figure above was taken from the primary sources below (accessed 2026-07-25). Where a number is derived (arithmetic on published figures) or covers a broader period or area, the text says so.

1. U.S. Census Bureau - QuickFacts, Midland city, Texas
2. City of Midland - Trash Service and bulk item pickup
3. City of Midland - Landfill and garbage hauler permits
4. TCEQ - Municipal Solid Waste in Texas: A Year in Review, 2024 Data Summary and Analysis (AS-187/25)
5. NWS Midland/Odessa - Midland Texas monthly wind records
6. NWS Midland/Odessa - Climate of Midland Texas, frequently asked questions
7. NOAA NCEI - Climatic Wind Data for the United States
8. U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA refines estimates for Permian tight oil and shale gas production
9. Railroad Commission of Texas - Texas drilling permit and completion statistics for December 2025