Monday, November 10, 2014

Exploring The Landfill

A few weeks ago we went on a Family Field Trip. It was a field trip I'd been wanting to do for awhile, and an opportunity which doesn't come up very often. We got to check out our local landfill. I was expecting it to be a smelly trip, so don't ask me why I was so set on going, but it was completely different from what I expected.
Since I'd just been reading a book about someone who raises falcons, I was intrigued to meet an actual falconer. This falcon (whose name I can't remember, maybe Luke?) helps control the seagull population at the landfill. He (or she?!) comes in two days a week.
One thing that makes me sad is that very few people in our region use the Green Bin. We can toss a lot of stuff into it (food, food paper products, kleenex, pet waste -- just to name a few), and it saves a lot of stuff from going into our landfill. One things that makes me happy is this picture of my family, especially Dave with his svelte figure and Rachel as the excited Green Bin! Ha ha ha!!!
This is not the most exciting picture ever, but it shows all the different  layers which go into the landfill. I am amazed at all the thought and technology which goes into thoughtfully disposing of the garbage which we throw to the curb once a week. What saddens me is that our region alone produces 700 tonnes of garbage a day. And I don't feel like we live in a really populous area.

What I find hopeful is that recycling started in our region. If you put a blue box full of recycling at your curb, that concept was started in our area by a single garbage collector who thought there had to be a better way. So the cubes of recyclables pictured above are all things which are being diverted from the landfill.
I think the reason I am so passionate about recycling and the diversion of as much garbage as possible, is that it worries me what sort of environment we're leaving for our children. I see Rachel innocently watching a video right now and wonder if she will be cursing my generation in twenty years. So our tour of the landfill was both depressing and hopeful. I feel like there are a lot of things being put into practice to try and divert our garbage from the landfill to places where it can be reused.

This post ended up going in a different direction from what I had intended, but I decided not to change it. I apologize for sharing such deep thoughts on a Monday morning, but if you are fortunate enough to be able to tour your local landfills, you will likely be amazed and challenged, just like I was.

7 comments:

  1. Wow, that's really interesting!! And so cool that curbside recycling started in your area!

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  2. My dad is a diehard green bin fan! He gets mad if I put anything in the garbage that can be green binned when I get to lazy to walk to the garage to put it in there. I'll have to see when the next one is - Leo would probably love it!

    And Dave looks great with that body! haha

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    1. I think one of my favourite parts of the landfill was Dave and that body!

      And after this trip we started a separate bin upstairs for our upstairs Kleenex. We already had one for downstairs but hadn't been separating the upstairs stuff, for some reason.

      I love that our kids always ask, "Where does this go?" because they know there are three options -- garbage can, recycling, green bin. They are learning.

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  3. I've never been to a landfill {though I drive past one cleverly disguised one every day!!} so this was really interesting to me! We do have curbside recycling bins that we can set out each week, so I hope that we're doing at least a little something to help!!

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    1. Every little bit helps. I think I just get frustrated when an option is available (that is pretty simple to implement) and people don't use it. But recycling/green binning is my passion. Other people probably get frustrated with little changes they wish I would make to make a difference in other ways, some of which I'm probably not even aware of.

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  4. That was actually very interesting and educational. Thank you! We do use our green bins around here...ours is usually more full than our trash can, and they only pick it up once very two weeks. One way we make it a little easier to use our bin is to keep a separate trash can in the house just for our recycling and then when it is full, we just take it out like the regular trash to dump into the big bin. Keeps us from having to walk outside to the green bin every time. You know what is similar about us...we both did a somewhat hopeful and depressing little field trip recently. We went on a family field trip with Evan's cub scout group to our local animal shelter. Talk about depressing! All those little "babies" (dogs and cats mostly) in cages with no home and loving family. Sigh. Most of them picked up from homes where they were abandoned and mistreated. Ugh. So yeah, if I write my post about that adventure, it will be pretty similar to yours. Glad you are doing your part to educate your kids about the environmental needs that are so important for our future. Hope more people in your area will catch on.

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  5. This is so interesting! I wish that we had more recycling options around here. =(

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