Ok, so there was a change of plans. The lady ,who did not give me her name, at the Arlington Landfill says Gary the leader of all things trash is on vacation and will not return until Monday so, plan B. Chris from the Haltom City Trash Transfer Station said that Denton has it going on when it comes to trash and that they are the “greenest trash facility around”. So after talking with my partner in trash, Quinn, we decide why not go see trash done green first!
We arrive at Denton Solid Waste at 1pm and boy is it hot outside, 97 degrees, and not a tree in sight. We slather on the sunscreen and start out on our first landfill expedition. Quinn is a little nervous as this would be his first time asking questions on camera. We mosey into the landfill operations building and are greeted by a jolly chap that sends for our guide, Bill. Bill arrives all smiles. Man, trash really can be happy. Bill is head of operations and informs us he has been working at the landfill for 20 years. Bill started on the back of a trash truck at the age of 19 and worked his way up to head honcho.
We follow Bill to his white pick up truck that is pretty basic but surprisingly clean. We all hop in the front seat. Bill is ready to give us the full tour. His landfill is 152 acres and services 100,000 Denton residents. Quinn and I look over to the right and see a big hill we look to the left and see a bunch of piles to the right.
As we head over to the big piles I start my amateur videography. Let me tell you, I could use some classes! Quinn begins to ask questions, which are quite intelligent and Bill answers without hesitation. Quinn wants to know “Are you allowed to take stuff home that you find in the trash?” Bill replies” no sir, that would be scavenging and that is forbidden by law. Once something is put into the trash it must stay in the trash even if it of use to you or someone else”. Quinn is really disappointed and believes this should be changed immediately. Bill says that there are some loops holes to this and explains that salvaging is legal but, expensive. The landfill had a pilot program that ended recently where there was a team of workers that would salvage through the garbage and pull out items of value such as old garden hoses, furniture, metal work to name a few. They would then turn around and sell them for profit. The challenge with such a program is the labor expense. Quinn volunteered to dig through the trash to help them restart the program! Bill said he would love to have him when he turned 18. As we passed by the large mounds Bill shared that there was a pile of garden and yard waste which they mulch. The next piles are more like large rows of really brown dirt. The brown dirt is compost. The compost is a combined effort between the Denton Solid Waste landfill and the Denton Water Utilities Department. The Water Utilities Department ”donates” biosolids the sludge from the water treatment plant and combines it with the yard waste from the Solid Waste department and after months they have a beautiful dark brown compost free of bacteria. This combined effort is called Dyno Dirt. Dyno Dirt is run by the city and sells its compost, soil and mulch to anyone for 25 to 30 dollars per cubic yard.
Dyno Dirt products are available on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. From March 1 to Nov. 1, we offer extended hours on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 7 to 11 a.m. First come, first served, they can and do run out!
From Dyno Dirt we move on to the landfill the star attraction for Quinn and I as neither of us have ever been on a real landfill. We pass several more towering mounds of stuff, which they have amassed for years and tire mulch which came from a tire plant that was closed down in Ft. Worth. We pass the already completed landfill which was started in 1985 and completed in 1997. It looks like a hill with black hoses coming out of it. The black hoses are methane wells. Methane is the gas that is created when our trash decomposes. This gas used to go into our atmosphere and create those nasty greenhouse gases that we all read about. Then the federal government said the landfills had to burn these gases. Solving one problem and creating an even bigger one from the pollution created when the gases were burned. That is where these gas wells come into play. Denton now harvests these gases and sells them to the gas company. The amount of methane gas they harvest can power 1,600 homes. Now that is cool. Do all landfills do this? Hmm, I wonder.
Then there it is the landfill! The landfill looked more like a gully or a dry riverbed. Lots of well, dirt and not very deep.
The Denton landfill is only 45 feet deep. Bill says that has to do with their water table. We see a bulldozer across the gully and ask if we can go closer. Bill obliges us and explains why his landfill is different from the rest. This Denton landfill is one of the first Bioreactor Type landfills. (The reason he says Bioreator Type” is because under Texas state guidlines they are not allowed to add as much liquid back into the landfill that would make it a true Bioreactor but they are doing the best they can within the state guidlines.) The landfill we are looking at will be completed in 10 to 15 years. Completed means it will be full of trash. Now regularly they would have to move on and make another 45 foot deep hole and compact it full of more trash. Now the problem with this is at some point say 25 years the city of Denton’s 152 acres would be full of trash and they would have to buy more property and start this process over. This is where the bioreactor landfill could save the day, year or even the Earth! This bioreactor landfill conserves all the run-off water and pumps it back into the landfill. This causes the trash to decompose at twice the normal rate. A regular landfill may take 30 years to decompose while a bioreactor only takes 15 years. That means that this new landfill will only produce methane gas for 15 years. After this 15 years it will be safe to dig another 45 foot hole exactly where the old one was, take out the recyclables and start filling it back up. Now that sounds like a plan to me, in essence they are composting our garbage.
The icing on this trash filled day was when Quinn got up close and personal with the Denton city residents trash. Bill drove us over to see the trash and how it is compacted into the Earth. A large bulldozer with spikey wheels rolls over the garbage until a video monitor reads green. We pull up to this very large wheeled bulldozer and Bill asks Quinn if he would like to drive it? Quinn’s face lit up like a kid in a candy store “Mom, can I ? I reply “Absolutely”.
I want to thank Bill so much for our tour of the Denton Landfill. Join us for our next adventure, The Arlington landfill!
emptytrashcans
