Everyone in the solid waste industry knows the general
public hates landfills. And despite all the efforts of
landfill operators to improve the quality and educate the
citizenry, the attitude is getting worse, not better.
A recent survey of residents about their preferences on
land use by the Saint Consulting Group reports that 78% of
the respondents would oppose the idea of landfill
development in their hometown. That makes landfills more
objectionable than casinos, aggregate quarries, nuclear
power plants and other types of power plants. We´d much
rather have a Wal-Mart in our backyard than a landfill,
according to the study.
The group did a study two years ago and landfills tied
casinos as equally objectionable at 76%. Maybe casinos are
becoming more popular.
I wonder now if the economic crisis we´re going through
isn´t an opportunity for landfill operations to make a
stronger case for themselves. Stress the financial
benefits to city councils. Landfills can generate tax
revenue from unused land.
More positively, landfill gas capture is an energy
source that not only can provide communities with funds,
but it´s also a clean energy source that should appeal to
the public.
Now, I´m realistic. No matter how desperate times are,
people aren´t going to want a landfill in their backyard.
(Although I´m still wondering how they´d prefer a nuclear
power plant.) It´s all relative. These economic times are
prompting all of us to re-evaluate our priorities. It
might be too strong to say people will become receptive to
the idea of a landfill, but they might be more open to at
least listening to the arguments more closely.
Landfill operators have always had to overcome a lot of
obstacles, and not all are fact based. People still
perceive landfills as smelly, unsafe dumps. They also want
to believe that we should recycle, reduce and reuse
everything.
Maybe we should, but we don´t. Fact is, roughly
two-thirds of our waste still ends up in landfills. If
they can help a community´s economy, that seems to me to
have added persuasion these days.
Allan Gerlat is editor of
Waste News. Past installments of this column are collected
in
the Inbox archive.
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