Trip Report
Volunteer Leader: Mark Hougardy | Group: Eugene-based Hiking Club: joined by BRING Recycling| Date: April 9, 2016 | Participants: 8 | Type: Day Hike
Visiting the local landfill is not high on a person’s bucket list, but ask this question, “Where is away?†When you throw something in the trash where does it go? What happens to it? What will happen to it?
Roughly 5-miles from Eugene is the County landfill. Visiting such a place is very useful for gaining perspective about our personal and societal use of resources. This was short, but a very educational trip. A handful of curious folks made the trip to learn about the facility’s methane recovery operations, how the landfill cells are designed, how space is maximized via compaction, leachate management (trash juice), wetlands mitigation, and impacts on the Middle Fork’s water quality – a potential secondary source of water for 250,000 people.
The footprint for this site is 540-acres, and the hills will eventually reach a height of 600-feet. The expected “lifespan†for this site is another 100-years; which means we will be putting trash into the ground for another 100-years at this site. That is a lot of trash.