The City of Mason runs its own landfill on Landfill Road, about a mile east of town off Highway 29, and it is one of the few sites in the Hill Country that charges by the pound rather than by the load or the ton. That suits the reality of small-town disposal, where most arrivals are a pickup bed rather than a tipper truck, and it means a genuinely small load costs genuinely little.

City residents pay $0.06 a pound with a $10.00 minimum, which works out at roughly $120 a ton. Mason County residents living outside the city limits pay $0.10 a pound with a $20.00 minimum, or about $200 a ton. Brush, limbs, yard debris and tree removal waste are charged at a much lower rate: $0.03 a pound for city residents with a $5.00 floor, and $0.06 a pound for county residents with a $10.00 floor. Separating green waste from general rubbish before you arrive therefore halves what you pay on that portion of the load.

Separation is a requirement here, not just good practice. Metal and brush must be kept apart from other rubbish, and the site maintains a distinct pile for each. Metal taken to the landfill pile carries no charge at all, so appliances, fencing and scrap are effectively free to dispose of provided they are not mixed in with household waste. The city's recycling centre handles cardboard, aluminium and steel cans, freon-bearing appliances, batteries and used motor oil; everything else metallic goes to the landfill.

Gate hours are eight to five on weekdays, with a half day on Saturday closing at twelve. Note that the published rate schedule carries an effective date of 1 November 2020, so it has stood unchanged for some years — worth a telephone call to 325-347-6172 before a large load if the figure matters to your budget. The city closes the landfill on public holidays and posts the schedule on its solid waste pages.