Ignorant Waste of Beauty

Callyn Gonzalez

Trash and Zero Waste

Megan Kelly

September 15, 2013

Our trip to DADS was both eye opening and informative for me. As we drove up to the landfill, there were dozens of containers labeled with all of the different wastes that the site stored. Continuing through the area, there were rolling hills to the left that had a light layer of grass attempting to grow on top of them. These were all filled with trash and no longer as lush as they originally looked. I was enlightened as I realized how much space the products we use take up in places that were once so gorgeous and now are nothing more than a dump. It dawned on me that this once beautiful piece of land was being ruined by our lack of effort in conservation. 

The image I posted reflects my frustration about the overuse of landfills as opposed to sending such items through recycling or composting them. The area surrounding the landfill is beautiful and serene, but unfortunately, this perfect view is desecrated by the large mountain of trash in front of it. The trucks bring in pounds and pounds of trash everyday, adding to the collection. Although the trash is hidden, doing this is not going to help our society minimize the toll we are taking on the earth and its resources. Eventually, we will run out of land and waste will have taken everything over. Perfectly good, untouched land, is being used to harbor our wastes and the beautiful scenery is being destroyed by trucks and dumping garbage. The picture I chose depicts this by showing both the good and bad views of the landfill and how they conflict with one another. Finding a balance between nature and human activity seems almost impossible at this point.

I appreciate having the opportunity to go on this trip because I have more first person evidence and a greater understanding of what happens to our trash once we dispose of it. Seeing how bad things really are gave me drive and motivation to not only recycle but use my newfound knowledge to encourage others to reduce their trash creation. The problem behind all of this misuse of land is the awareness that most people lack about how their actions affect the environment. It surprised me how much I was unaware of in regards to disposal and recycling of the large amounts of waste we produce everyday. If people were more aware of how their ignorance is running down nature, they may be more likely to think twice before continuing these thoughtless actions. One of the most important subjects in school is environmental awareness and knowledge about how our earth works. It is important that this education is not only required but also spread around in order to help maintain the earths lasting beauty and ability to continue functioning. If I have such minuscule knowledge of the severe damage caused by our waste, I can only imagine how little those who are less invested than I know about conservation and reducing wastes. David Orr explains that, “[T]he environmental crisis originates with the inability to think about ecological patterns, systems of causation, and the long-term effects of human actions” (Orr, 2). People are unaware of the harm they are doing and thus nothing will change or improve due to this ignorance. If people were more educated on not only how to handle waste but also how to reduce how much waste they are making, the future of our environment would look much brighter. Reducing the need for dumps such as DADS would surely lead to maintaining the beauty of our environment and living on a healthier planet overall.

Susanable future

 

       In September 2008 D.A.D.S launched its Waist-to-Energy program. This process extracts the methane through a series of pumps located at the surface of the trash mounds. The pumps lead to series of chambers that convert the incoming methane to electricity. This electricity is totally sustainable powering the entire dump and an additional 3,000 homes. 

      Over the course of a single day the Denver population produces over 12,000 tons of trash. This number alone makes this dump the sixth largest in the nation. Although there are many dump sites like Denver not many of them hold the same interest in renewable energy, and even less are experimenting with such positive results. In the readings from Capra this quote describes what a sustainable society should be like, “A sustainable society is one that satisfies its needs without diminishing the process of future generations”. This is what we must strive for in our future. The first steps can be taken by doing all around the nation what D.A.D.S is currently in the process of doing. The picture at the top of the page shows the machines at D.A.D.S that convert the methane to renewable energy.   

           As I write this paper two questions are being raised, Can methane be used as a more permanent solution for renewable energy? And why aren’t we pushing for more experimentation on other dump sites across the nation? To run the D.A.D.S plant in Denver there only needs to be about thirty five staff members on site. This is surprising seeing how large this operation is. The dump site known as D.A.D.S is located on a former bombing range which provides thousands of acres on un-used land. Estimations done by the staff, it will still be another 129 years until the dump is fully filled. This provides an opportunity for a growth in methane extraction and conversion. This could possibly be the answer for the future in sustainable energy.

  

 

 

  

Monument of Abuse

Monument of Abuse

            Each day these black towers of infectious waste are raised to the sky, in an almost ceremony like fashion, before draining their contents on to this monumental peak of litter and continuously growing the stain that our pollution has left on these plains. What does this grievous ceremony symbolize? Yet another vat of unwanted trash has been hauled from a city not too far away; a city that has all but forgotten this load of waste as it begins producing the next. The Denver Arapahoe Disposal Site (DADS) has long been the main location for marshaling the trash of Denver and its surrounding areas. DADS has grown to a nearly incomprehensible size and yet it grows larger every day.

            While watching these “Dark Towers” (two hydraulic dump truck lifts) rise straight into the sky I was left with an eerie feeling. I recycle, I ride my bike when I can and I have had the same reusable water bottle for four years. Why do I feel guilty? Could it be guilt by association? I alone could not create a landfill this large in a whole lifetime, but no that wasn’t it. I am an American teenager, trust me when I say I’m good at blaming others, and yet I could not help but feel somewhat guilty. The plains that DADS rests upon used to be no different from those that I have worked on each summer, or the ones that I have been fortunate enough to bike through, and no different from the one that my home resides on. These plains would have looked very different had it not been for the over consuming and wasteful human society. They could have been topped with the peaceful fields and meadows that life in Colorado has me so familiar with and yet they are covered in junk that MY community and MY society have created. I am no different from those who don’t recycle, never bike, and don’t own reusable water bottles. I am no different from them because they are my neighbors and my fellow people, and until WE as a collective group stop the abuse of our environment and our planet, then I am just as guilty for the raising of those black towers. Although it is unrealistic to discontinue the use of landfills altogether, with the right motivation and education, we as a race have the ability to slow the frequency of the towers rising and the dumps from filling. If one person takes a step toward sustainable living it is noble, but if a society as a whole takes that same, step then it is monumental.

Standing upon the mountain of trash and imagining how much of it belonged to me led me to another thought: how many others have seen this? Although I can sit here and be moved by the sight of this tragic place to be better, what if others are not? Why isn’t our environment a more unanimously worried about topic? Each night in the news one might hear about military conflicts in the Middle East or about economic issues in Europe. So why is it we never hear about DADS, a very local and relevant issue? It is time that it is brought to the light so that everyone may see it and hopefully worries about it enough to do something different. “I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security. Defense of our resources is just as important as defense abroad. Otherwise what is there to defend?” Robert Redford. 

#DADS

#TrashandZeroWaste

#DADS

We arrived to the Denver Arapahoe Disposal site or DADS for short, in the late morning. It was one of those picturesque days where you couldn't find a cloud in the sky - something I am not used to in Connecticut. The contrast between the sky and the garbage wasteland was enormous. The emotion I felt was more of a disbelief than a disgust. I couldn't even wrap my head around the amount of trash that was being dumped every day. And what was even more repulsive was the copious piles of would-be recycling blanketing the landscape. How was this possible, isn't Colorado a very eco-friendly state? It didn't seem that way at all. There seemed to be contrast everywhere I looked. There was a light tangible breeze on the top of the landfill that brought a cool temperature to the hot day. The breeze was almost refreshing, keeping away any odor that remained among the thrown away materials. Here I was at the top of a giant, real life metaphor of the overconsumption in the area and yet I was physically charmed - the wind was cool, there wasn't any smell, and the day was perfect. This made it hard to grasp the injustice all around us. Not to mention we had an air conditioned bus! It felt like we were being taken through DADS as potential investors, not people who wanted to see and feel the real-life problem in our community.
My photo touches on the wealth of contrasts we encountered on that day. The beautiful cloudless sky sits on-top the desolate 'landfill', which should properly be renamed 'giant trash heap'. In fact renaming a landfill to something like 'trashfill' would probably raise awareness by itself. The second contrast is one that can only be explained by the picture taker and that is the fact that the photo was being taken from the air conditioned tour bus. It was almost as if we were just as ignorant as the people who throw away recycling. There wasn't enough time to sit down and think about problem our generation must face eventually. The black and white instagram effect gives the photo a third and powerful element - one of regression. I feel society hasn't progressed with waste management in the last century. I couldn't believe that in the modern day and age we were still throwing away recycling in vast quantities. Environmentalist David Orr suggests that "the planet does not need more successful people". He instead calls for "more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of every kind" (Orr 12). These are the people we must depend on to save the environment - not because they are extraordinary thinkers but rather simple ones. Simple thinkers with powerful consciences. Maybe we instead need to redefine 'success' in our society. Should wealth be the leading factor of what makes a person successful? Absolutely not.