Eat Your Greens :: Landfill Field Trip Recap

May 18, 2010 Filed Under: Events 1 Comments

When I was preparing to tour BFI Landfill, I had this vision in my head of what it would look like.

The picture was a huge hole in the ground, carved out of the side of a mountain and bigger than several football fields. In my head, it was filled with anything and everything. I saw bikes, tires, plastic bottles, bags, food scraps and packaging material. I saw recyclables too. I’m quite certain this preconceived notion and fear was brought to life in my mind because of the unregulated dump that existed in my hometown during the 1980s. But boy, I was wrong. Instead, I left the landfill feeling educated and informed about my waste.

First a little economics lesson as surprisingly, trash and economics go hand-in-hand. Recycling came to be in the Northeast because they were running out of space for landfills. States were paying lots of money to ship their garbage to the Midwest and South. Here in Charlotte things were different. We didn’t have the space limitations and so, recycling had not been an economic necessity. Instead, it has come along because of environmental rather than economic concerns. But times are changing the larger Charlotte becomes.

So lets get into the nitty gritty. BFI is located near Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord. In fact, the speedway is built on top of an older filled landfill as are the camping grounds. Cool Fact: Because of the methane gas that’s constantly emitted, ground fires are not allowed on the grounds. Another Cool Fact: Within the area surrounding the speedway, there are five separate landfills, with one, BFI, in active use.

BFI Landfill is a 300-something acre site that handles all of Mecklenburg County’s residential waste. It does not handle construction/demolition waste, yard clippings, hazardous or medical waste. Daily, BFI disposes of approximately 4000 tons daily of Charlotte's waste. At the current rate the landfill is expected to meet capacity within 15 years.

What exactly is a landfill? What goes into creating one? Since the early-1990s(which doesn’t sound all that long ago) all landfills, including BFI, have a synthetic liner and several feet thick layer of clay designed to prevent leaching and treat leaching. It also has a method to capture methane gas and turn it into energy. When you fill your trash can, the dump truck picks it up along with hundred of your neighbors. At the end of the day the truck driver goes to the landfill, drives to the top of the mountain and dumps his truck. There is no sorting. So if you throw something away that’s bad for the environment it’s in there. The trash goes into a compactor, and is then mixed with dirt, layered and pushed in place by a bulldozer. As Brad Green, Manager of BFI Landfill said, “a landfill is breathing and living in the sense that it’s always changing.” It’s constantly settling and is monitored on multiple levels. Once the landfill is full, it’s covered with an impermeable layer several feet thick to protect from water entering. Then it’s covered with several feet of dirt and typically used for some type of non-intrusive use. For example, a golf course or a park with no trees as the roots could impact the integrity of the liner. Because it’s settling, landfills are not suitable for heavy weight building so no homes or shopping plazas are allowed. Post closure care and monitoring take place for decades.

One of the most surprising things I learned was that because of current federal restrictions, the chances of getting a new landfill approved in Charlotte are slim to none. But, the fact of the matter is, trash will never go away. If we want to reduce our waste increasing what we can recycle is a step in the right direction. But ultimately, mindful consumption is the surest way.

Written by: Sarah Bradley | Blue Feather Media