Pondering the Central Landfill

The Central Landfill is located in Johnston and is the biggest and most important in both economic as well as environmental factors and in practicality in all of Rhode Island. The Central landfill has gone through a number of different owners and phases to reach its current state today. In 1960s an

d 1970s the dump was largely unregulated. This continued until the early 1980s when the dump was acquired by the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation, (RIRRC). However prior to the acquisition, the landfill was in a very bleak situation, which was severely impacting the environment as well as the many citizens living in the vicinity.

Another interesting point that I found was the fact that while many complain of odors it turns out that most of the time these odors do not come from the Central Landfill. As a matter of fact they seem to emanate from the landfills neighbor, the infamous Louie Vinagro. Mr. Vinagro runs a pig farm and also has an area which contains industrial wastes, such as sheetrock. These things, when wet, initiate the rampant growth microbacteria whose wastes give off a powerful stench. This is not to say that the Landfill doesn’t occasionally give off odors, however the actual amount may as it turns out be overstated.

Thankfully, by late 1979 people within the Environmental Protection Agency, (EPA), came to their senses and banned open dumps altogether. What arose from the former dump was what is called a sanitary landfill. The current owners, the RIRRC, formed this type of sanitary landfill in Johnston. A sanitary landfill was described to me as “a landfill which contends with the daily output of trash from across the state.” The new name also came with a new set of regulations, which the operators were forced by law to observe. A sanitary landfill operated as each day’s trash was laid it was compacted using special bulldozers. After each day a six inch layer of soil was laid out on top and the next day the process started anew. The RIRRC states that the reason for this was to, “slow decay, prevent exposure to health hazards, and reduce odor problems.”

Some topics in this essay:
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