Home sweet dump
Tijuana landfills are home ot hundreds of people who depend on garbage for their livelihood
And on this side of the border...
Every day, Ricardo, who asked that his real name not be used, rides the blue trolley line and gets off at every stop to dig through garbage cans. He picks out plastic bottles and aluminum cans then uses a coupon he clips from Pennysaver to get $1.70 a pound at a Chula Vista recycling center.
You won’t find garbage pickers crawling through the Miramar Landfill. (Nationwide, laws make it illegal for scavengers to step foot anywhere near landfills.) It’s the first municipally operated landfill to meet international environmental standards and be certified ISO 14001, which means, among other things, that the landfill has an onsite recycling center; a native-plant nursery growing greenery that will eventually re-vegetate the land once the landfill is closed; the methane gas produced by decomposing garbage is collected and reused to power the electrical generators at the city’s water reclamation plant; the landfill produces compost and mulch for sale to the public; and there’s a Goodwill drop-off center at the entrance.
The city even employs someone to set off firecrackers near the landfill all day, every day, to keep birds from swooping in to pick through the trash. The city’s Bird Control Program, by the way, is the only one of its kind at U.S. landfills.
The Miramar Landfill’s progressiveness is impressive, but San Diego does rely, at least in part, on people who pick through trash to collect recyclables. There are no statistics, says Jennifer Ott, environmental services outreach coordinator, that detail the demographics of those who bring in recyclables to the stations throughout San Diego County, but the fact that many of San Diego’s homeless and poor make money by bringing in cans and bottles is indisputable.
As of Jan. 1, a citywide ordinance made recycling in San Diego mandatory. The law probably won’t affect Ricardo, who relies on public trash cans for his bounty, but he says those who rely on Dumpsters in the city’s neighborhoods to find recyclables might have to find new sources of trash.
Comments
Beautiful writing on an ugly topic. Although I hate the thought of people scavenging in and living near unhealthy landfills, I also think about how much people throw away that is still useful, how much we don't recycle. I wish there were a better way to go through garbage that sifts important metals and resources, rather than just bury it all. People still throw away too much, rather than donate or recycle. Smithsonian, a long time ago, did a story about an Asian landfill, from which people scavenged every form of metal and made useful items and art pieces. Scavenging, heartbreaking in so many aspects, is still a time-honored trade. It's sad, the things I see people put out for the dump truck--old bikes that are still in good shape, lamps that are no longer fashionable...does anybody recover these things or does EDCO just sweep it all away?
In my hippy days, poor and in college, I used to cruise the dumpsters behind Safeway and City Market. It was amazing the fine dining we could put together with items just a few days beyond the expiration.
When you were a little girl, we used to go scavenging at the dump and furnished a significant portion of our home with "another man's trash".
I realize there is a quantum difference with what you wrote about, (Beautifully written by the way) but thought you would like to know that you come from trash picking stock.
Love Dad