In my previous
Web log, I suggested that landfill advocates have not done as good a job as
their competitors in rallying support of the public and their representatives.
I’d like to expand on the subject a little.
Allow me to
voice my opinion that, regardless of what you want to call it, there will always
be waste (hopefully less as we go forward) and therefore the need for safe,
secure, properly managed, and economically viable repositories for it. That
doesn’t seem particularly contentious, especially since what people put out on
the sidewalk is a reflection of overall societal behavioral patterns that do not
look to waste managers or social planners for guidance or permission…another way
of saying the public talks by what it does, not what platitudes it mouths. The
issue, therefore, is not so much that landfills may always be a part of the
equation, but rather what their purpose will become.
Today’s
landfills are more than just repositories for absolutely worthless stuff. They
are often the hiding places for materials for which no viable markets exist. In
a great number of cases they are cash cows, not only for other waste management
programs that cannot fund themselves, but even as reservoirs into which public
officials can dip to shore up general fund shortfalls.
If these are
roles we want landfills to play in the future, then let’s inform the public.
Ditto their use as low-efficiency anaerobic digesters, marketplaces for
composted greenwaste, receptacles for disaster-spawned materials or unwanted
recyclables, or dumping grounds for diseased poultry or livestock.
All of these
are issues that cannot be properly assessed or adjudicated at the federal or
even state level, but that deserve full-disclosure airings before those whom any
decisions will affect. A little candor here may help resolve some of the issues
that polarize us and stand in the way of genuinely effective, locally oriented
decisionmaking.