500-Foot Garbage Pile Highlights California’s Landfill Problem

Puente Hills Landfill in Los Angeles County is the largest landfill in California, and it poses significant harm to humans and animals. The landfill contains with various kinds of trash, but you would not believe the item that takes up the most space.

The more garbage that needs to be disposed of, the more landfills need to be created so the garbage has somewhere to go. There are many large landfills in California, including Altamont Landfill, Desert View Landfill, Forward Landfill and Puente Hills Landfill. 

Over-consumption is also an issue. With the millions of people living in California and the amount each person consumes every day, most of this ends up in trash cans, which then fill up the landfill sites.

Many of these issues involve the packaging of items people consume. Many people order things online, and with those items comes a lot of packaging that needs to be disposed of. Even though some of it can be recycled, other parts must be thrown in the trash. 

Paper accounts for around 26% of the waste in landfill sites. This is due to people reading newspapers and magazines and then discarding them or needing to get rid of important documents. Plastics are the second most common waste product, despite both paper and plastic being recyclable.

Instead of waking up to the sound of cows mooing or having fresh milk delivered straight to their doors, residents began being subjected to the unsightly look and smell of a landfill site.

Despite ceasing operations, all of the waste that had been dumped at the landfill remains there. Instead of placing it elsewhere, the plan is to cover the garbage with soil and let it stay there for the rest of its life. 

As it’s being covered up, it is believed to only need 5 feet of soil on the top of it. This might seem like an unusual thing to do, but it is pretty standard for a maxed-out landfill site to be treated like this.

As time goes on, trash seeps toxic substances into the ground. It doesn’t just affect that area — it can also seep into waterways. These substances then affect local ecosystems and have lasting consequences for those ecosystems that can go on for centuries.

They then leave the landfill sites and travel to other areas, spreading the substances to land and local properties. This can affect produce, livestock and products, which might lead more people to rethink what items they put in the trash.

It is a 142-acre site and is now finally being put to good use. This means that instead of the site remaining an old landfill just covered with dirt, it should provide a place for wildlife to thrive and for families to visit. It also marks Los Angeles’ first regional park in 30 years.

It suggests that more needs to be done to curb Americans’ wasteful habits, such as putting less packaging on products and possibly giving them incentives to recycle more. A 500-foot garbage pile is considered an extreme amount of garbage, and its negative effects on humans, wildlife and the environment are only set to worsen if nothing changes.