Skip to main content

Johnson County Landfill Tour 4-6-2017

Seeing is believing… and sometimes that’s just what it takes to put the mind in motion..
I began reaching out to landfills in the midwest around January of 2017.
What I found is if they are private, there are no legal motions that require allowing public to see them. 
Go to east or west coast and landfill tours may be more common. Here in the midwest however, most doors are closed.
After reaching out to a few dozen landfills across multiple states, I put the phone down, stopped emailing, and went on with my life.
Three months later I received an email from Mike Hey, the new director of communications and the Johnson county landfill. He said not only would he show me the landfill, but he would be honored.
We met, and went on a drive…
Over the mountains and through the hills to the Johnson county landfill we go.
He had just taken position in Kansas City as Waste Management had just bought out deffenbaugh.
A new guy on the floor to clean up years worth of messes.
From wars between the truck drivers and landfillers, to running the fill 24/7 over working everyone, cutting corners, which was producing a costly smell on the community around it.
As we drive up and over, the first thing we see is almostan art installation of plastic bags fluttering in the wind.. all caught by trees and fences. “ plastic bags are by far our worst enemy here. They can fly up and over for miles, leading to community complaints against us. We installed this fence dozens feet tall and a couple millions in cash for the bags alone.” 
“Running this place 24/7 was running a race that no-one was going to win. I changed the hours. I gave my guys gift cards to mc Donalds and forced them to buy eachother lunch and talk. I told them. "Your new job is becoming best friends with each trucker and filler out here." Now we got a team that shows up, works as a team, gets the job done full hearted and gets to go home feeling a days worth of work has been successfully done.” 
We go to the base of the cavity* as they call the open spot where all our “stuff” goes.
They dump our stuff. And then a series of layers are applied… dirt, plastic, gravel. And rinse and repeat.
A separate company comes to collect and sell the methane run off. 
It’s beautiful , the way the birds “vermin” flow with the bags in the wind, white dancers all around. And the smell… so think you can collect a residue on you with it.
The recycling facility is much simpler.,.,. more of a sort, collect, bale, and ship out to whoever will take it.
Mike Hey says “when we came here last year the landfills life was estimated another 40 years. With our change in management and style of business we have more than quadrupled this number. “
What I hear is “less incentive to recycle” But from where he’s coming from, Us(the community), Is so absolutely poor at effective recycling that getting us to do more of a bad job would only hurt us and the business that Mike is trying to improve on.
The more space in the landfill, the longer this current system can remain.
I see him, and I am so grateful for him and this landfill. It’s buying us time. It’s buying us time to educate ourselves and change our ways. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Volunteering

When I left public high school, I found myself searching for education in nontraditional ways. This desire led me to volunteering.. I have been an avid volunteer for over 12 years. This is not for curriculum or requirements, I volunteer because it's the most direct action I can take. Donating money is the next best thing, but it's a dry exchange that limits engagement and ability to see where the help* goes. I began with recycling events, tree planting, invasive plant removal, and recycling education. These events and actions put me face to face with my community and my communities core issues regarding consumption, waste, and pollution. It's a practice to do something for nothing. These days instant gratification in social media or consumption leaves us hungry and hopeless to do something that pays off for future gain. To invest in the future may leave our hands empty for now, but the payoff is always greater than the initial handout.
Post a Comment
Read more

San Fransisco - LA Sweetgreen roadtrip 4-29-2018

Tuesday morning- April 24th I will be traveling with a Orion down the west coast with a final destination of Arizona. Orion works for a farm to table concept called SweetGreen. He builds personal relationships with the farmers to learn their system and values. We will be leaving San Francisco and visit farms throughout the west coast and the south states.  Orion and I begin on the road this morning towards a mushroom farm , high production high scaled. I want to focus on the education aspect of this but I can’t help pulling an emotional human experience with it. Orion and I visit Global Mushroom. Most everything is automated. Our guy Chris tells us that before they expanded he told the boss man about automation. Implementing this system into an old system doesn’t work. You can’t stop production to create a new way. You need to expand in to a new system as to make the old system obsolete.  The equipment mixes, weighs, drops the agricultural waste into wooden crate. Then t
Post a Comment
Read more

Green proposal for Brookside Kcmo 6-6-2018

I’m thrilled  to talk with you today about  brookside's new potential in   recycling and composting . First I’m going to tell you why I’m here, why now is the time for brookside to begin its journey to sustainability  and then ill hand it over to Cassandra who will go into better detail on logistics for a sustainable future.  My name's Olivia English and I was lucky to be raised in brookside. I’m lucky to also work at Bella Napoli which is an Italian family restaurant that has made brookside its home for the last 17 years.  Bella Napoli strives in authentic Italian experience.  This experience comes from Italy, and in Italy, restaurants such as ours not only care about what goes on inside the restaurant but what happens outside regarding waste... especially food waste. In Milan, excess food is used to feed less fortunate, composting to feed farmers soil, and recycling to feed a circle economy and reduce landfill methane production.  I'm a traveler and I direct my
Post a Comment
Read more