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Landscapes of Waste: What’s in a Name?: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Landfills and Dumps

Landfills stigmatize communities

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The United States and Utopian Waste Management: Sunshine Canyon Landfill
As we learned on a recent trip to the Sunshine Canyon Landfill in the city of Sylmar in California’s San Fernando Valley, Puente Hills is not the only landfill touting scientific advances. We traveled 32 miles up the 405 freeway to the Valley from UCLA’s pristine campus in Westwood, nestled off Sunset Boulevard, bordering Beverly Hills.

We received a guided tour from one of the landfill employees who explained first-hand the activities of a first-rate facility. After passing through the entry gate welcoming us to Sunshine Canyon, and as we awaited our tour guide, we drove under a set of misters. While one might assume misters would serve to provide a reprieve to workers laboring in the heat, as soon as we meet our guide, she explains the misters are there for dust abatement. Minimizing the dust helps to reduce the smell for neighboring communities. And since the roads are made of dirt (packed over trash), there is a significant amount of dust. Odor is obviously a concern for the management at Sunshine Canyon as the property covers 136,000 acres and the nearest neighbors live only a quarter mile from the dumpsite.

Although there was a relentless line of enormous garbage trucks filing up and down the mountain, we received a shock when we saw no visible trash. High-reaching mountains of dirt surrounded us with no discernible garbage. Finally as our eyes drifted up to the highest point of the mountain, we saw a tiny island of trash. Our tour guide continued to explain all the methods the landfill employs to keep the neighbors and various environmental agencies content with their presence. She repeatedly noted that while the landfill accepts eight tons of garbage daily, the community resents the presence of the site. In order to continue running the facility, the management uses various techniques to preserve the environment and appease the neighboring communities. To protect the ground from contamination, they employ thick plastic and various levels of intervening materials then pile on top of the trash. That is, they pack down the garbage and lay 7-feet worth of different materials (from clay to rocks) above the waste, finally topping the layers off with dirt. The process of layering dirt upon the garbage allows for better retention of natural gases and keeps the ground clean, while assisting in smell reducing. Combined with the dust abatement program of the misting system and the hiding of trash under dirt and layers of plastic, our guide assures us that these sanitary methods are the ultimate in landfill technology. Our tour ends at the viewing platform where we can appreciate the manufactured panorama landscaped by trash.

While these invisible landfills easily shroud our excessive consumption, their presence is both necessary and felt. With the Puente Hills landfill closing in 2012, Sunshine Canyon now accepts a portion of the trash that was destined for the old site. But neighbors claim that since 2010, the odor escaping from Sunshine Canyon has increased to an unbearable stench (Smith). There have even been complaints filed by children at local Van Gogh Elementary. Even though the company operating the site has been fined over 55 times since 2010, the community felt insufficient action was taken and filed a lawsuit in 2012. The suit led to a $500,000 fine on the company.

Like the Staten Island community, Sylmar residents would like the landfill to close. Not only because of the smell and possible health risks, but because it stigmatizes the community. In The Fresh Kills Story they explain that New Yorkers vilified Staten Islands because of its proximity to the dump. Living next a landfill embarrasses community members and drives away businesses. This shame sharply contrasts with the attitudes we see towards dumps in emerging nations.
Emerging Nations: Trash and Subsistance
Yet this interaction with dumps and its waste is not only a source of income for the impoverished, it allows them to derive pride from their work. Both Estamira (2004) and Waste Land (2010) take place in the Jardim Gramacho, one of the world’s largest dumps. Located near Rio de Janeiro, it closed in July 2012. While these documentaries differ vastly in subject matter, they share a commonality in that the subjects of the films are "catadores" or trash-pickers at Gramacho. These catadores, especially the female contingent, express gratitude for having an option for survival other than prostitution, drug trafficking, or abusive relationship. For Estamira, her work ethic is important and she continually reiterates that she has an honest job. Her ability to support herself and survive off the money she derives from recycling and the food she recovers from the dump could be the only reason she has remained out of an asylum.

In Waste Land, we meet Suelem Pereira Dias who “has been working in the garbage since she was seven; now she’s 18 with two kids and another on the way. She’s proud of her work, because she’s not a prostitute or involved in the drug traffic . . .” (Waste Land website, np). Isis Rodrigues Garros finds herself at Gramacho after escaping an abusive relationship, while “Magna de França Santos fell on hard times when her husband lost his job. Her fellow bus passengers may turn their noses up at her, but she tells them at least she’s not turning tricks on Copacabana” (Waste Land website, np). Irma (Leide Laurentina da Silva) “is the resident chef cooking up a plat du jour from the freshest ingredients she can find at Jardim Gramacho.” She collects food from the dump in order to prepare it and feed the other catadores. The reason for each persons’ arrival at Gramacho is varied, but unlike the complaints of residents and government representatives at Fresh Kills about the stigma associated with living on Staten Island because of the dump, these women find legal and dignified work to support their families and themselves through trash-picking.

The leader of the catadores in Waste Land is Sebastiao Carlos dos Santos, or Tiaõ. Not only does he find pride in his work, but repeats the need for catadores’ in the waste management system. At the end of the documentary, Tiaõ is being interviewed on TV and is introduced as the leader of the Jardim Gramacho Garbage Picker’s Association. He promptly corrects the hosts and says: “We are not pickers of garbage, we are pickers of recyclable materials. Garbage cannot be reused, whereas recyclable materials can” (1:35). Tiaõ signals the need for catadores in Brazilian. They serve a purpose in reducing the amount of garbage in the ever-shrinking space of the dump.