| Every time I drive by a landfill and see their blazing stacks with eternal flames burning methane, it makes me furious, especially when I know how landfills are constructed and about the tons of toxic waste in barrels that get buried on the bottom during the early stages. It's bad enough that the runoff goes straight into the water table, and thence into lakes and rivers. Our own local lake is so full of heavy metal that one is warned NOT to eat the fish...and that water goes straight into the rivers. Even the Chattahoochee south of Atlanta gets constantly pumped full of every kind of industrial and municipal waste. I digress...again.
Meanwhile, groceries, and organic waste contibutors, gins, mills, lumber processors, paper mills and MANY other creators of perfectly good organic material continue to send material to landfills daily.
Went by several groceries today seeeking green waste, i.e., trimmings, out of date fruits and vegetables, etc.. NO...corporate policy forbids giving it to anyone even for compost, so it goes into the dump. It would be interesting to list how many food processors, restaurants, and corporations of every size have the same policy. Ingles, Kroger, Publix, WalMart...NO, it has to go to the dump.
Cities and counties do well here because they receive tipping fees. Went to the county and city for leaves, NO it goes to the dump. Imagine, across our country how much green and brown material goes to the dump every single day...I maean megamillions of pounds... the mountains grow and the methane keeps getting burned.
Imagine how much compost we could make if some of them would rethink the stupidity and waste of such policies. With all the BS I read every day about corporate commitments to sound environmental policies, WHY do we even have landfills today?
Time for me to start a program to flood those grocery and food chains, maybe even those other contributors to the waste stream..those whose byproducts would be perfect for IMPROVING our soils and environment. I did write to Ingles and Anheuser Busch. Care to join me and maybe even spread the word. At least our local county ag agent thought it was a great idea. Funny thing is, you go to the local dumpster site and they have composting systems on display, but ask the county or city for leaves...NO, it goes to the dump. This place is surrounded by poultry, pork and chicken producers and thats a LOT of perfect material. Then come the feed mills, cotton gins, flour mills, paper mills where they burn the compost. JUST IMAGINE what all of that, if composted, could do for our soils and gardens.
Actually, I am serious, WHY can't we reclaim some of this? Let's flood those corporate Presidents and see if ways and means can't be developed to actually be allowed to use some of their waste!
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