We Came, We Saw, We Smelled
Last Monday morning at Bees Ferry Landfill in West Ashley, the Office crew got to learn a few things about landfills from Bronwyn Santos of Charleston County’s Environmental Management, who was kind enough to give us a tour of the 700-acre trash heap.
The first thing that took most of us off guard was how scenic the site appears as you enter—the rolling hills, now considered sanctuary grounds for wild birds, are actually heaping piles of waste that have since been covered over with dirt and grass. Piled in the back of a pickup truck, we rolled past these grassy mounds and soon arrived at the fresh fill. While the smell of methane was reasonable to expect, we couldn’t have anticipated the crazy number of gulls that flocked over our heads like a Hitchcock movie while Bronwyn explained the workings and composition of the landfill. Some of us picked our way through the rubble and mud to get closer to the worksite, where men in bulldozers were filling a gigantic valley with truckloads of trash. The scene was incredible—it was as if the earth had broken open and oozed out old mattresses and sneakers and broken chairs and plastic bottles, waste that formed cliffs where vultures and gulls could perch.
From what Bronwyn told us, a few statistics were particularly striking. Apparently, 25% of the waste sent to Bees Ferry is recyclable paper. From the amount of plastic bottles we saw strewn around the dirt-trash mountain range, it’s clear that a much higher percentage of that waste is recyclable material in general. Another 28% of what they receive is food waste. They’re the only landfill in the region that will receive food waste, so a lot of it is sent here. It makes sense then that they have a compost operation, which we got to witness next. Taking place within the area that is technically reserved for piling waste, the compost procedure mixes this food waste (nitrogen) with yard waste (carbon) to create a good amount of dark nutritious dirt that they process and resell for $10 a ton (definitely a steal.) The dirt is also used to mix in with the landfills and to help “close” them up when they’ve reached capacity. We learned about the “recipe” for a trash fill, which includes a plastic catchment layer at the bottom that is meant to prevent toxins from the waste from seeping into the environment, and several deep wells that allow for groundwater testing and treatment.
Even while addressing this regimented management, Bronwyn was in no way disingenuous about the unsustainable nature of the whole operation. According to her, the facility—which is only a decade or so old to begin with—is sure to reach its limit in only 20 years. This was pretty shocking to hear; even worse is that there’s no purported plan for what to do after that. No catchment layer can prevent this literal wasteland from toxifying the environment around it—not to mention the grievances of surrounding communities, from whom the facility receives regular complaints. So even while Bee’s Ferry is a special case in that it composts and has a mixed fill and is quite regulated, it’s still a temporary and even hazardous solution—yet landfills in general are our most standard method of dealing with waste.
Visibly seeing the masses of trash we generate, and what becomes of it, should not be such an out of the ordinary experience. If it were up to me, school systems would mandate educational field trips to local landfills. Just as people should be more aware of where their food and materials come from, they should know where they go. Seeing and knowing about what comes of the waste we generate is a necessary first step before you can convince people to care about their role in the issue. The culture of mindless disposal is not sustainable—we’d like to cover the problem with grass and call it a bird sanctuary, but when the trucks roll over and cause the whole earth to shake, it’ll be clear that we are no longer standing on solid ground.
–Genna DeGroot