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Excerpt: Hiding In Plain Sight

By Heather Rogers, AlterNet. Posted October 31, 2005.


If people saw what happened to their waste, lived with the stench, witnessed the scale of destruction, they might start asking difficult questions.
Excerpt: Hiding In Plain Sight
Excerpt: Hiding In Plain Sight
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The following is excerpted from Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage (The New Press), by Heather Rogers.

In the dark chill of early morning, heavy steel garbage trucks chug and creep along neighborhood collection routes. A worker empties the contents of each household's waste bin into the truck's rear compaction unit. Hydraulic compressors scoop up and crush the dross, cramming it into the enclosed hull. When the rig is full, the collector heads to a garbage depot called a "transfer station" to unload. From there the rejectamenta is taken to a recycling center, an incinerator or, most often, to what's called a "sanitary landfill."

Land dumping has long been the favored disposal method in the U.S. thanks to the relative low cost of burial, and North America's abundant supply of unused acreage. Although the great majority of our castoffs go to landfills, they are places the public is not meant to see. Today's garbage graveyards are sequestered, guarded, veiled. They are also high-tech, and, increasingly, located in rural areas that receive much of their rubbish from urban centers that no longer bury their own wastes.

There's a reason landfills are tucked away, on the edge of town, in otherwise untraveled terrain, camouflaged by hydroseeded, neatly tiered slopes. If people saw what happened to their waste, lived with the stench, witnessed the scale of destruction, they might start asking difficult questions. Waste Management Inc., the largest rubbish handling corporation in the world, operates its Geological Reclamation Operations and Waste Systems (GROWS) landfill just outside Morrisville, Pennsylvania--in the docile river valley near where Washington momentously crossed the Delaware leading his troops into Trenton in 1776. Sitting atop the landfill's 300-foot-high butte composed entirely of garbage, the logic of our society's unrestrained consuming and wasting quickly unravels.

Up here is where the dumping takes place; it is referred to as the fill's "working face." Clusters of trailer trucks, yellow earthmovers, compacting machines, steamrollers, and water tankers populate this bizarre, 30-acre nightmare. Churning in slow motion through the surreal landscape, these machines are remaking the earth in the image of garbage. Scores of seagulls hover overhead then suddenly drop into the rotting piles. The ground underfoot is torn from the metal treads of the equipment. Potato chip wrappers, tattered plastic bags, and old shoes poke through the dirt as if floating to the surface. The smell is sickly and sour.

The aptly named GROWS landfill is part of Waste Management Inc.'s (WMI) 6,000-acre garbage treatment complex, which includes a second landfill, an incinerator and a state-mandated leaf composting lot. GROWS is one of a new breed of waste burial sites referred to as "mega-fills." These high-tech, high-capacity dumps are comprised of a series of earth covered "cells" that can be 10 to 100 acres across and up to hundreds of feet deep--or tall, as is the case at GROWS. (One Virginia whopper has disposal capacity equivalent to the length of one thousand football fields and the height of the Washington Monument.) As of 2002, GROWS was the single largest recipient of New York City's garbage in Pennsylvania, a state that is the country's biggest depository for exported waste.

WMI's Delaware-side operation sits on land that has long served the interests of industry. Overlooking a rambling, mostly decommissioned US Steel factory, WMI now occupies the former grounds of the Warner Company. In the previous century, Warner surface mined the area for gravel and sand, much of which was shipped to its cement factory in Philadelphia. The area has since been converted into a reverse mine of sorts; instead of extraction, workers dump, pack and fill the earth with almost 40 million pounds of municipal wastes daily.

Back on top of the GROWS landfill, 20-ton dump trucks gather at the low end of the working face, where they discharge their fetid cargo. Several feet up a dirt bank, a string of large trailers are being detached from semi trucks. In rapid succession each container is tipped almost vertical by a giant hydraulic lift and, within seconds, twenty-four tons of putrescence cascades down into the day's menacing valley of trash. In the middle of the dumping is a "landfill compactor"--which looks like a bulldozer on steroids with mammoth metal spiked wheels--that pitches back and forth, its 50 tons crushing the detritus into the earth. A smaller vehicle called a "track loader" maneuvers on tank treads, channeling the castoffs from kitchens and offices into the compactor's path. The place runs like a well-oiled machine, with only a handful of workers orchestrating the burial.


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Best episode ever. Standing O !!
Posted by: nitsua1023 on Oct 31, 2005 1:32 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I have been logging onto AlterNet for about a year now, in order to one day read this article. Fantastic job Heather! This really is the root of almost all of America's psychological problems. Mindless consumerism. The vast majority of Americans purchase disposable everythings, every day. Huge amounts of Americans are gluttonous spending addicts. The greatest sin in the world, in there is such a thing as sin, is consuming more than you produce. It certainly isn't sustainable.

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Here in Japan
Posted by: expat in tokyo on Oct 31, 2005 4:37 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Here in Japan I live in a city of 14 million consumers and we consume like it is going out of style. Yet, when we go to throw something away we HAVE to seperate it into burnable,unburnable and recycleable waste. They waste damn near nothing here.. and what they do waste is burned. They enforce their enviromental laws like they enforce the drug laws in the US.. very severely and everyone complys. The US could learn alot from the second(soon to be first) largest economy on earth.

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» RE: Here in Japan Posted by: maxpayne
» RE: Here in Japan Posted by: HuckFinn
» RE: Here in Japan Posted by: stoney13
» RE: damn Posted by: montana freeman
» RE: damn Posted by: stoney13
agitator church and state
Posted by: eileenflmng on Oct 31, 2005 4:55 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Thanks for pushing this repressed question to the surface which illuminates one of the holes in the soul of 21st century America:

gluttonous consumerism and rampant waste.

It's not the dumps that are the problems, they are only a reflection of US and as Pogo said:
"We have seen the enemy and it is US."

And it is up to US/'we the people' to be the solution by changing our ways and that takes thought and effort.

When we quit impulsive buying and only purchase what is absolutely necessary we no longer are a part of the problem, for we have become a part of the solution.

www.wearewideawake.org

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Wasted
Posted by: menckenman on Oct 31, 2005 5:07 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The corollary to waste not, want not is waste alot, want alot. I'm sure Heather talks about food packaging in her book which I will defintely get.

Think about it: Tremendous pollution is a by-product of package production - we buy the package, which is attractive, and the food is almost inconsequential. If we ate real, unprocessed, unpackaged food, we'd be healthier and less polluting, but real food can't compete with Mcfood. The garbage generated destroys the ecology required to grow anything organic. Food processing destroys the food and creates the equivalent of permanent and toxic garbage nuclear bombs, set to go off under the parks and schools that will be built over them (according to WM commercials.)

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WASTE IS TOTALLY UNNECESSARY
Posted by: Oliver's Owner on Oct 31, 2005 6:22 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
What is sad about this subject is the behavior of MOST Americans.

I attended a fundraiser recently in Sheperdstown WV for the Conservation Film Festival. 175 people had a delightful evening in a restored barn at the Caperton Farm. A delicious dinner was served, on ceramic dishes, with wine glasses, linen napkins and table cloths and stainless utensils. It was catered , with wines and ambiance.

The scrap food was gathered and fed to anilmals on the farm. The dishes , silverware and linens were returned to be washed, in ecologically sound processes and machines.

Not ONE bag of trash was produced. NOT ONE! The volunteer event organizer, Susan Walter, a wonderful environmentalist and advocate, vowed to eliminate the one bag they produced at last year's affair...and she succeeded. Kudos to Susan

It illustrates what we can do if we try...make an effort to stop trashing our society...stop using one time plastic plates and cups that are from oil sources that took millions of years to create. Stop using "one time anything" that you can...JUST THINK ABOUT IT in everything that you use...and discard

In Isreal, the technology exists to achieve 95% recycling of municipal waste. The technology exists here too....but the giant waste monopolies do little to embrace such change.

And we let them

Congratulations Heather...keep screaming about this horror that will be a year long halloween someday

Allan Tweddle
Charelston West Virginia

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Hillside Festival
Posted by: demidesigrrl on Oct 31, 2005 7:57 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I went to the three-day Hillside Festival in Guelph, Ontario, this summer past and had the most wonderful time of my life. Not only was there great music, but a small army of volunteers were there to ensure it was the most garbage-free, environmentally friendly music festival I have ever seen. I'm used to attending outdoor and indoor shows and seeing masses of litter strewn across the area - paper plates, beer cups, cigarette butts... not at Hillside! All the food was from local vendors, it all came on non-disposable plates with real cutlery, you purchased your souvenir beer mug and kept refilling it... and film canisters were provided at the entrances for smokers to put their butts in (volunteers, including kids, walked around and nicely reminded them also). When you were done with your plate, you took it to the nearest bussing station, where volunteers sorted out recyclables, compost etc., and washed the dishes. The result? A beautiful space to enjoy music, virtually free of garbage and litter. I think this contributed immensely to the festival's "good vibes" and the enjoyment of festivalgoers. Hillside is getting to be a huge success. It can be done, people!

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» Yes it can be done Posted by: nitsua1023
» RE: Yes it can be done Posted by: churchofone
That's why the mantra begins with 'Reduce'
Posted by: Bic Pentameter on Oct 31, 2005 9:03 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Reduce, re-use, recycle, they say, in that order of efficacy. Producing less waste to begin with being preferred, then re-using an item and lastly seeing to it that it's component substances are recycled into new products.

2 or 3 yrs ago I read (National Geographic) a comparison between the environmental impacts of the 'typical' middle-class american family and the 'median income' family in the Czech Republic. Both were assumed to have the same number on family members. They didn't refer to the Czech family as middle-class, and we wouldn't quite picture them as such.

The conclusion was that the typical American family had an 'environmental footprint' 80 times that of the Czech family. It didn't just include ammount of goods consumed, but energy use, packaging, etc.

The lifestyle of the Czech family didn't sound too bad either - especially to a city dweller. They walked to a grocery, bakery, butcher, etc, and bought fresh goods from bulk supplies. They carried the stuff home and cooked it in old fashioned pots & pans and saved the food scraps separately from trach that had to be carried off.

Several times a week various members of the middle-class American family drove to fast food restaurants and purchased prepared foods with enough packaging and paper & plastic goods to equal nearly a weeks worth of environmental impact from the other family. Part of the energly formula also took into account how the goods were brought to the point of sale, and from where.

As I drive by a particular few homes on garbage day each week and repeatedly see not only huge quantities of trash, but also a big mess for the garbage collectors to pick up, I just have to shake my head. I can't help but also notice the apparent value of the vehicles parked at one of them. It just seems to me that such persons don't consider the impact they have on this planet.

What if we had to support 6.8 billion in exactly that manner? Environmental conservation begins before you leave for the store, in what you buy, har far you make it stretch or how long you make it last.

But I'm an old fuddy-duddy with an old black telephone with brass bells and a receiver sideways across the top. Never had a cell phone and don't want one. Never had a cordless phone, either. I still play phonograph records. I don't need to pitch everything and re-tool my life according to every new gadget that comes along.

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its not the consumers, it the producers of trash !
Posted by: cobrajet on Oct 31, 2005 9:09 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
IF we could stop the manufacturesr from using som much packagin on their products, we cold eliminate so much trash. I buy an item, and the box is twice as big ( fine it is cardboard), but then it has miles of palstic wrap, and plastic bags and containers. Buy a small elctronic device, and the plastic package is twice as big ! WHy not penalize the producer for their packaging ! Make them take back their package, and re-use it ! Make these containers that are removable at the store, and they go back to the manuf. I take home only the actual product, no waste !

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Trash Bags - Another Example of Something We Don't Need
Posted by: BMaxwell on Oct 31, 2005 10:26 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Trash bags are just another example of soemthing that we don't need. A sack of plastic that won't biodegrade for a long, long time. An example of something that you buy in order to throw away. All they do is make it a little easier for people to get their trash to the curb.

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dadanbetty
Posted by: dadanbetty on Oct 31, 2005 9:07 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
You gotta love that post-closure liability for the owners expiring after 30 years. This is just about the same time that the seepage and drainage into the water supply starts. Gee Wally, I don't understand why this county is suffering from such high rates of cancer. Can you believe that my brother and his wife whom reside in the Seattle area, have a 4 year old daughter and they do not recycle?

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Heather Rogers speaking in New York
Posted by: tworiddles on Nov 1, 2005 8:20 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Heads up to those in the New York area: Heather Rogers is speaking November 15 at a progressive think tank called Demos. Here's the info from their website (www.demos.org):

Garbage Economy: The US Market's Reliance on Trash

Tuesday, November 15, 2005 | 12 - 2pm

Join Demos, Green Worker Cooperatives and Journalist Heather Rogers in discussing her new book, Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage. Combining a gripping exposé with a potent argument for change, Rogers' book traces the connections between modern industrial production, environmental standards, consumer culture and our throwaway lifestyle.

This event will also feature as a respondent Omar Freilla of Green Worker Cooperatives, a South Bronx-based non-profit organization working to create "green collar" jobs and worker ownership in one of the country's most polluted and economically depressed neighborhoods.

Register online or call 212/633-1405 x533

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WASTE: The side effect of every human activity--
Posted by: qu on Nov 1, 2005 9:24 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
--and one of the majors reasons why, humans are the worst virus like creatures, ever to inhabit nature's earth. Something we can all be proud of, No?

-Qu-

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