To start off my story, I will show you the area in which the landfill of Boone County exists. An area is found where the company can dump garbage, dig up dirt elsewhere and place dirt on top of the garbage in layers. This photo is taken way above on top of the landfill, looking down into a deep ravine where the road is constructed for the trucks to bring the dirt up the hill. As a positive, you can see that these trees directly on the edge of this site are not effected.
When I arrived, in my late father-in-law's Dodge truck, I had to drive onto a lane where there is a large scale to weigh the truck, load and all, and me too. I had an appliance, an old humidifier and that was an automatic ten bucks more, please take it over and put it with the old air conditioners. I saved ten bucks also, as that is the charge if you have an uncovered truck. The reason is, that they have a man or two out there paid to pick up the blowing debris, especially plastic bags that come from the deliveries. Once I was finished being weighed I was told to follow the road up the hill. The hill of course is actually a garbage hill that is man made.
As I got to the top of the hill, I noticed that I was following a commercial garbage truck, and the place was crawling with them all over, just like a bunch of ants. You can see I am facing three trucks leaving. If you click on the above photo you can see that it reminds one of driving on the moon. Our clay in the soil drys out powder white.
About two miles from this site is the Des Moines River. We never had sea gulls in Iowa until they built a dam south of here twenty miles and created a lake. So the gulls have followed the river and now live for garbage. It was very cold that morning so they were all just sunning themselves away from the dump site.
Across the valley from the gulls this is what you see. The trucks and my truck too, backed up to this ledge and dumping their load. The machine on the pile has this massive heavy roller on it that smashes, compacts everything. When it is driving on the soil road, it leaves holes in the ground like waffles.
When I first got there, we were all taking turns. There were three trucks side by side, emptying their loads and it looked very intimidating. But garbage truck guys are nice guys and I just blended in with my little Dodge. When it was my turn to back in, I had been able to wait until there were no trucks left. I blindly backed up until I came to a place on the side where others my size and kind of load had dumped. There were storm windows, old furniture, and glass and cardboard everything. As I started unloading two trucks joined me so I wasn't alone.
A close up of the sea gulls by the sea of garbage. I really had not expected to see them there, but when I first drove into the area, I saw three of them flying overhead. Welcome to Iowa, birds.
When you are done clearing your load, you drive back down to ground level, you wait in line to get weighed again, to see how much your junk weighed. A nice man, but impatient man, who probably hates doing this over and over again, figured up my charges and sent me on my way. My trash didn't weigh over 500 pounds so I was charged the base fee of seven dollars, plus the ten for my big bad appliance, which I think he thought was a de-humidifier, which has a compressor, but not a humidifier, which has no compressor.
All I can say about all this is that we need to rethink packaging. I know we use trees to make cardboard, but we are growing a plethora of trees to make these products. If a plastic water bottle takes 1000 years to disintegrate, how long does it take a plastic milk carton, or laundry detergent bottle to go away. Cardboard can decompose in less than a couple of years.
Somehow, we need to put more of an effort to figure this all out and still have our convenience.
That landfill will be there for hundreds of years, maybe more. We haven't had these around for very long. We won't know how they will even behave. I know that the landfill in southern Iowa, where my parents' house is, they think they will be done using up all the space in two years and they will have to look for a new location. That one is just as scary as this one when you drive up onto it. I really have no answers, I just want to put some ideas for us all to think about. Thanks for reading.......
5 comments:
What a fascinating post. And I love the sea gulls by the sea of garbage line. Thanks for the insight into waste dumping in the States.
Nice Post! I have seen these landfils and they make me sick. I try to recycle what I can like plastic, cardboard, glass, aluminum, paper and steel but it takes organization and storage space (like a garage) to do that. In our town we have a drop-off site for recyclables. I've been lax about it lately so this post was a good reminder to be more mindful about recycling.
Also, I hate to shop because I ask myself how long this item will last before it gets tossed out. I also wonder what my grandparents would think if they walked into a Walmart or Convienance store today and saw all the stuff we buy. Especailly my grandfather who owned a store in the late 1800's until 1930's. Back then you brought your own jars to buy vinager for crying out loud! Oh how times have changed!
I like to recycle and repurpose things for my own use. Like fabric for quilts, antique bricks for sidewalks, I have made lamps out of old water pumps, etc. My home is decorated in primitive items I pulled out of barns and not that stuff made in China!
Okay, so you found something I'm passionate about. Thanks for taking the time to write such a good post.
It's just amazing what people dump. It's too bad more people don't recycle or reuse more. I've put things on Craig's list and am amazed at what people will take and use for something else. People can repurpose so many things.
Good post concerning our environment. We may give importance to recycling and try to reduce the plastic waste. As you have said, without trees and vegetation, this area looks like a moonscape.
I remember you commenting about your landfill on my blog in the summer, so it's really interesting to see it now. It is very sobering to think of just hiding all that stuff from sight but not really dealing with it. Our milk comes in plastic containers, but up until about 10 years ago we still had doorstep milk deliveries every day, where the milk came in re-usable glass bottles. Virtually all my family's plastic waste is plastic milk bottles.
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