On the Trail of Our TrashIntroduction: The State of the NationOn the Trail of Our TrashKatherine ThompsonEVS 300 SmithFinal Project5/10/070Abstract:The objective of this project is to learn about the solid waste stream at Smith College and about how the Northampton landfill operates. I conducted interviews with Bob Dombkowski, Karen Bouquillon, and David Veleta and had a tour of the Northampton landfill. I learned that Smith produced 960 tons of waste in 2006 (713 lbs/student). Smith garbage is composed of 25% compost and some recyclable materials. The heaviest component of our trash is organic material. Smith garbage is hauled daily to the Northampton Regional Sanitary Landfill by a Smith garbage truck. About four tons of solid waste is hauled weekly costing $300 per week. Northampton Regional Sanitary Landfill serves 44 communities and is located about five miles away from campus on Glendale Road off Rt. 66. The permitted annual capacity is fifty thousand tons and the current contract ends in 2011 when the existing landfill will be capped. The city is seeking approval for horizontal expansion of the landfill. The Northampton Landfill has contracted a company called Amaresco to purify methane from landfill gas emissions and generate electricity, which could begin as early as August 2007. The old portion of the landfill remains unlined and could potentially release leachate into the groundwater, but was capped so as to minimize the amount of leachate generated.Smith has both economic and publicity incentives to reduce our solid waste stream. This could be done by eliminating the Grab’n’Go theme in dining halls, decreasing disposal of food waste, and employing a dependable composting program on campus.Introduction: The State of the NationAmericans are reputed to be the greatest producers of trash in the global community. In 2005 the U.S. generated nearly 246 million tons of municipal solid waste (Smith, 2006). The national scale of municipal solid waste has tripled since 1960, peaking at 369 million tons in 2002 (Royte 2005). In fact, Americans discard 4.3 pounds of trash daily per person, making us truly the greatest trash producers globally. On the state scale, Massachusetts generates 8 million tons annually, 15.5% of which is exported out of the state (1.06 million tons) (Repa, 2005). That waste may be 1going to any of our neighbors’ back yards or as far as South Carolina or west to Ohio. Do you know where your trash goes?In order to be an environmentally conscious member of this planet one must have an awareness of the consequences of one’s actions. As citizens in a consumer society it is important to know where one’s purchased products come from and where one’s waste goes. As Frey says regarding hazardous waste: “those who create . . . waste and benefit from its production should bear the costs associated with its disposal” (Frey, 2001). Manypeople are clueless about where their trash actually goes after the garbage can. Elizabeth Royte is one American citizen who took responsibility for her trash and went on an adventure following her garbage from her kitchen trashcan to the landfill.Smith College is an institution that does in fact profit by catering to student’s conveniencein a manner that yields a huge amount of waste. For my final project I use Royte’s example and trace my trash from the dumpster across from my house on campus to it’s ultimate destination. Through this report I would like to challenge other members of the Smith community, students, staff, and faculty alike, to take initiative and learn where theirtrash goes.Methods:My exploration of the waste stream began upon my visit to the municipal waste facility, the Northampton Regional Sanitary Landfill, where I met David Veleta, who is an2engineer at the Northampton Department of Public Works, and David Lucey, Landfill Supervisor. I got an extensive tour of the landfill including a brief history and an explanation of the engineering of a landfill and how it operates. It is a much more complex system than I realized!I conducted several interviews with individuals both at Smith College and City of Northampton Department of Public Works. I talked with Karen Bouquillon, Solid Waste Management Supervisor, as well as Bob Dombkowski, Grounds Supervisor at Smith College. I talked with Ms. Bouquillon on the phone and with Mr. Dombkowski in person.This project also involved a research component. In choosing a paper topic, I visited the Environmental Science Resource Room to explore past year’s seminar papers. A few of these papers were relevant to aspects of my topic (Wraight 2003 and Torres-Leon 2005). I also visited David Veleta at his office to pick up some documents regardingthe landfill. Finally, I conducted research of city and EPA documents online.Results:Smith Trash:Although Smithies witness the garbage truck emptying dumpsters on a daily basis,the great majority of the Smith College community it unaware of where our trash goes. Our trash is in fact picked up daily all over campus by one garbage truck driven by 3Chester Saltis and delivered to Northampton Regional Sanitary Landfill, located roughly five miles from campus. In my interview with Bob Dombkowski, I learned that Smith produced 959 tons ofsolid waste in 2006 alone. This figure works out to about 713 pounds of trash per student. Between three and four tons of solid waste are hauled weekly at a cost of $300 per week.Furthermore, in 2006, 301 tons of recyclable material or 223 pounds per student were produced on campus. Domkowski says that there is not much paper in the waste stream and what is there is contaminated. He thinks that the amount of recyclable waste in the waste stream has decreased significantly as the recycling program on campus has improved over the past few years. Several years ago when the recyclable content was higher the amount of annual waste was exceeding 1,000 tons per year, Domkowski says.The heaviest component of our trash is food waste. Since the consolidation of dining halls, Dombkowski claims that the amount of food waste has increased. When asked his opinion on the pilot composting program, Domkowski had negative feedback. He doesn’t believe that a composting program at Smith will be successful unless it is integrated with the solid waste system on campus. He thinks the current system of having a truck from off campus haul compost far away (to Hatfield) is inefficient. He envisions a system where