What it’s like to work at a landfill

Aaron Geerts
Jul 24, 2017 · 2 min read

So you’ve finished your Starbucks coffee, breakfast sandwich, and apple aye? Nothing left to do but recycle and compost properly. Unfortunately this doesn’t happen as often as you’d think. Some people simply do away with their garbage on the street or toss it all in the garbage. Well done indeed thrower of trash. Well I hate to shed the light of reality on the situation, but that’s not enough anymore. All the crap that’s not recycled properly (plastics) make it out to the landfill. Surprisingly enough, this blog post isn’t a guilt-trip about recycling, nay, it’s about working at a landfill where all of your plastic mistakes go to live for the next 1,000 years or however long until they decompose.

What’s it like to work at a landfill? Does it smell really, REALLY bad? Do you every find anything interesting? YES TO ALL!!!!! Except the first question. Second question — Just tell yourself it smells like money. Third question — Yes, find amazing things all the time you’re not allowed to take home with you. Working at a landfill isn’t all that bad, you’re outside all day, it’s hard work so you come home with a sense of accomplishment. You work side-by-side with some grinders (aka people that work hard) which develops a strong work ethic, and sometimes you get to play with some heavy machinery.

Some days suck because an important piece of equipment will break down and ruin your whole day :D Or it’s raining. Not just ordinary rain, the gods conspire against mankind kind of rain. The worst however is the wind. The winds get up to 30 mph, and when it’s dusty as Grapes of Wrath and papers are flying everywhere, it gets under your skin. Every job has it’s fair share of “fuck-it” moments, windy days are it for landfill workers. However, without the most shitty of days, you wouldn’t appreciate the days where everything goes smoothly.

Circling back, a lot of recyclables wind up at the landfill. What happens is all of the trash get’s pushed into a big pile, then compacted down with a huge tractor called a “compactor” :-O After that, everything is covered in dirt. Lather, rinse, and repeat. There are mountains at the landfill that are mistaken for mountains, they are indeed giant mounds of garbage covered in dirt. Loads and loads of reusable items are idly tossed away without a second thought. It’s cheaper for big companies to throw away sightly damaged products than sending them back to be fixed.

The worst load I ever saw dropped off was a medical load. Items still in their packaging, still wrapped up, were getting tossed out of the back of a big white U Haul truck. I took a closer look and saw so man NEW medical supplies, or slightly out of date. This made me sick. It’s not like there’s wars going on where kids are getting their limbs blown off every day. No, those supplies are better buried. That’s kinda what it’s like to work at a landfill

Aaron Geerts

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The more you laugh, the longer you live.