ENSURING GOVERNMENT SERVES THE PUBLIC INTEREST

Everyone should, of course, strive to reduce the waste they produce, reuse items as much as possible before replacing them, and recycle whenever they can.

The ongoing failure of New York’s solid waste program dates at least as far back as 1988 when the State Solid Waste Management Policy was entered into NYS Environmental Conservation Law, Title 1, Section 27-0106.

Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) landfills like Seneca Meadows, which are designed primarily for household and commercial waste, can pose significant environmental and health risks that are comparable to those of hazardous waste landfills.

Just to be clear, Seneca Meadows (SMI) landfill is considered a “major source” of air pollutants, such that their pollutants (including CO, NOx and GHG) are regulated under the federal Clean Air Act.

There is no such place as “away” when it comes to throwing things away, which means there’s a good chance that when you throw something “away” in New York City or Ontario Canada or anywhere around New York State, for that matter, it will likely end up at Seneca Meadows landfill—i.e., other people’s backyards.

Landfilling, a technology that has been widely employed for decades as a method for waste disposal, has increasingly been recognized as a failed technology due to its long-term environmental, social, and economic consequences. These impacts include pollution, resource waste, environmental degradation, and health hazards, all of which outweigh the purported benefits of landfilling.

Solid waste landfills can emit toxins, including hazardous air pollutants, methane, carbon dioxide, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and also leachate that can contaminate groundwater, surface water, and soil.

Residents of our county are not only concerned that they have lost control of decisions regarding our local waste issues to the foreign corporation that owns Seneca Meadows and that corporation’s even more distant shareholders, but they are equally concerned that that have become a sacrifice zone.

The toxic threat to people who live or work near landfills had been known about and preached by the EPA for decades.

Landfills are a silent legacy we’re leaving behind of contaminated water, disrupted ecosystems, and atmospheric pollution—one that future generations didn’t ask for but will inevitably inherit.

The concept of “NIMBY” (Not In My Backyard) has been a long-standing expression of public resistance to undesirable developments in local communities.

Don’t landfill regulations truly protect us? Sure. Just like wearing a seatbelt does while your car’s on fire, or a fence keeps your garden gnomes from running off to join the circus.

Landfilling represents a failure to properly manage valuable resources, and waste itself (specifically, municipal solid waste) should therefore be viewed as a materials management issue (crime) because it’s predominantly composed of materials that can provide resources,…

Ultimately, when a landfill company volunteers such vast sums of money (hands out checks) to their local population and townships, it’s not an act of altruism; it’s an investment.

In the modern era of environmental consciousness and technological innovation, some practices and systems persist despite their evident inefficiency and detrimental as well as destructive effects. One such practice is landfill technology.

Burying discards in the earth, especially when knowing these materials pollute the environment and create long-term health hazards, is not just an environmentally destructive practice, it is a form of collective insanity—insanity, by definition, being the inability to perceive reality clearly and act in ways that ensure survival.

If an alien were to visit Earth and observe our daily habits, they would likely be horrified by the absurdity of our waste management practices. With all our advanced technology and intelligence, it would baffle them to see us repeatedly bury the things we no longer want, only to face the devastating consequences later.

In her book Garbage Land, Elizabeth Royte paints a gritty picture of New York City’s waste scene: “It isn’t just garbage that irritates the [transfer] stations’ neighbors. Six days a week, twenty-four hours a day, ten-ton packer trucks roll in with their deliveries—at some stations, more than a thousand of them a day.”

The belief in landfills as a solution to municipal waste is like a matrix (mental program) that limits people’s ability to see or think beyond the status quo—the term “matrix” in this context being a metaphor drawn from…