LEBANON — A month-old rule barring construction debris at the Lebanon landfill could be rescinded this summer, according to city officials who recently heard complaints from contractors and residents used to cheap prices and relaxed rules at the West Lebanon facility.

But reopening the landfill to construction and demolition waste — which includes lumber, plywood, roofing tiles, sheetrock, insulation and other building materials and is known as C&D — is unlikely to solve all their concerns, City Manager Shaun Muholland warned last week.

In an effort to extend the facility’s lifespan, Lebanon is likely to lift the ban but plans to increase prices for unloading C&D and will also crack down on debris that is not allowed in the mix, such as scrap metal.

“Unprocessed C&D takes up to about 20 percent of landfill space,” Mulholland said of the proposed changes. “It’s bulky and takes up a lot of space.”

The landfill is expected to reach capacity in about 10 years, if nothing is done to limit its intake of trash and construction materials, according to the city’s website.

That’s partially why Lebanon chose to bar C&D starting on May 1, Mulholland said. At $68 per ton, the city was offering drop-off prices “much lower than anywhere else,” he said.

So in mid-April, letters went out to construction firms and surrounding communities letting them know of the ban and referring business to three other facilities: the Hartford Recycling and Transfer Station, Casella Waste Services Transfer Station in Lebanon and Hammond’s Grinding and Recycling in Orange, N.H.

“We used to take all of our debris to Lebanon and obviously in the roofing business there’s a lot of debris,” said Jeff Acker, of White River Junction-based HP Roofing. “It now has to go to Hartford, which is significantly more expensive.”

The change has also forced Acker to spend more time sorting C&D before sending it to Hartford. The Lebanon landfill used to be forgiving if some metal or trash got into a C&D pile, he said.

“Now at the job site we have to separate trash and wrappers and all that stuff,” Acker said. “It adds a lot of steps at the job site.”

The three facilities still open to C&D report seeing more contractors and commercial haulers in the last month, but officials say the change isn’t drastic.

“We’ve gotten some new customers and the tonnage has gone up a little but we’ll see what happens,” Bob Vahey, Hartford’s solid waste supervisor, said on Friday.

He said businesses pay about $98 per ton to drop off construction waste at the transfer station on Route 5. The material is then ground up and taken to the Lebanon landfill, where it is used to cover other fresh material.

Casella vice president Joe Fusco said his company’s Lebanon facility is seeing a “slight uptick” in business. But that only amounts to a few additional pickup trucks of material a day.

Fusco, who declined to say how much Casella charges to process construction and demolition waste, said the material collected is sent to one of the company’s landfills.

Mulholland said the city has received several phone calls from commercial haulers and contractors angered by the ban. Some had already quoted construction projects to clients and been forced to go back and adjust rates, he said.

His office is drafting new rules that will reopen the landfill to construction debris. Those would allow it to accept C&D and grind it up in a similar manner to Hartford’s facility, Mulholland said.

The proposed changes will be outlined in a City Council meeting scheduled for June 26. Businesses and officials from 22 surrounding communities have been invited to learn more, Mulholland said.

In Claremont, the Planning Board is reviewing a site plan from American Recycling on Industrial Boulevard for a waste transfer station that would accept C&D material that would be loaded on to rail cars and transported out of the region.

The board could make a decision at its meeting Monday night.

Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.