LAKE COUNTY, Fla. -- It seemed like a good idea for Lake County at the time. Leaders teamed up with a garbage facility in Okahumpka that converted trash into energy and sold it back to Progress Energy for profit. But Eyewitness News found out, Lake County is running out of trash, so now the county may have to spend extra money to buy other people's trash and keep the deal going.

Every day, up to 75 garbage trucks haul nearly 500 tons of trash to the Covanta Waste-To-Energy plant in Okahumpka. However, that is not enough garbage.

"When we don't have enough trash, we know there's something wrong in the economy, and we see it before anybody else does," Lake County trash manager Jeff Cooper said.

Cooper says, when people buy less, they throw away less. For the first time in the 18-year history of the facility, the county is not hauling in enough waste to fulfill its contract with the plant. The county must deliver at least 163,000 tons per year.

"Is trash that much of a hot commodity?" WFTV reporter Berndt Petersen asked.

"Well, it is to us at this point in time, as well as to some others," Environmental Utilities Director Daryl Smith replied.

The plant makes money by selling the power that is generated to Progress Energy. Covanta and the county each get a cut. Lake's portion is $642,000 per month. The county could lose some of it and have to pay penalties to Covanta if they're short on trash and and right now they are so they are ready to cut deals to lower the tipping fees to new clients; the $40 per ton fee could be cut in half in order to get more trash.

"Will you buy it if you have to?" Petersen asked.

“If that's the worst case scenario, we will do what we have to do," Cooper said.

Officials are now talking with Marion County. Their dump is filling up and it might be a way the two counties can help each other.