Landfill

So my dad came over yesterday with his truck and trailer. We loaded up what was left of my old fence and headed over to the city landfill. I've been to the landfill twice before. Both times my boyfriend and I have taken his small tuck. All we had to do was drive up a concrete ramp and throw whatever trash we had over a ledge and into a dumpster below. We'd drive off about five minutes later.

This trip was nothing like that. I saw the real landfill this trip. I think it was because we had a trailer full of stuff. We were told to keep driving past the concrete ramp I was accustomed to and we drove up a steep gravel hill. And we weren't the only ones. There was an endless line of trucks and trailer in front and behind us.

Excuse this next bad quality picture, but I think it shows the massiveness of the line in front of us pretty well. Keep in mind this line is two trucks wide.

I thought that there must be some particular reason so many people were there to drop off trash at the same time. How could that many people have that much trash all at once? But I guess I don't have that great of an imagination because my dad struck up a conversation with one of the employees while he was waiting for him to wave us on, and he said that it's like that every Saturday. We were fairly high on top of the trash/gravel hill and the colorful view of the surrounding fields was a stark contrast to the literally barren wasteland in front of us.

It took us about an hour to get to the dumping area, which didn't seem that long considering the line of trucks. It was pretty interesting to see. Everyone one should take a trip to the local landfill, if only to make you think twice about making a purchase you may end up trashing in a year anyway. Everyone wants new shiny things (including myself) but if your old not-so-shiny thing is still functional, you may want to think about holding onto it for a bit longer.

All told, I don't think I'm that great when it comes to the grim reality of how things really work. I watched a PBS special ten years ago about chickens and it included a view of the living conditions commercial laying hens were kept in. I still have to buy free range chicken eggs to keep the nightmares away.