Carbon County is discontinuing the collection of the solid waste tipping fee.

On Thursday, the county commissioners approved the discontinuation of the collection, effective Jan. 1, 2015. The county has continued collecting the $4 per ton fee from trash haulers for municipalities at landfills even though it ended its solid waste department in 2013.Commissioner William O'Gurek said that the county plans to return the 2013-2014 tipping fees that had been collected to the municipalities in 2015, once all reports are complete, and urged municipalities to talk to haulers in the hopes of seeing a savings on their bills since haulers are not getting charged the tipping fee.Currently, about $162,000 is in the solid waste account. A considerable amount of that fund is tipping fees, the commissioners said.The county will base the refund of tipping fees based on the tonnage reports provided by landfills.For example, if Lehighton's tonnage was 125 tons, they will receive $500.The commissioners said that the final tonnage totals though will not be determined until after the end of the year.