Dumps and Landfills

Over the past few weeks I have been looking at the highest points of elevation in the State of Ohio. A lot of the places are either landfills that are currently being used or landfills that are now not being used due to regulation issues or environmental regulation stepping in to shut it down. One of the most astonishing places is the Rumpke Dump in Cincinnati, Ohio which is where I am from, and that this landfill is the highest point of elevation in the Cincinnati area. The point which is marked on the USGS Topographic map that I was using for research said that it has an elevation of 319 meters and is even designated as "Rumpke Mtn." This is marked right next to a another peak which to my best knowledge seems to be at least 320 meters in height from reading the topography lines. This seems absolutely ridiculous to me and highlights the fact that we have completely lost control of how much we use and consume in this country. The fact that a dump can be designated a mountian seems completely distopian. I then looked in both Franklin and Cuyahoga counties (Where Columbus and Cleveland are respectively) and found that both have landfills or prior landfills topping 300 meters each. It took some time to comprehend how much waste must be gathered to produce such a large 'land mass' but I figured it would be a lot. I researched it a little bit and found out that they put over 5 million tons of waste in the landfill each year, and have won court battles in order to expand the landfill. This is insanity, and I wondered if there was some way we could curb the amount of waste that seems to be piled onto this landfill each year. I thought about how some countries such as Denmark, use biomass as a power source in and actually import trash from other European nations because they are so good at burning and managing waste. Another solution I researched, which the landfill in Cuyahoga county had already done was land reclamation whichh is literally turining the landfill into usable land. Again, the Danish island of Bornholm is aiming to become 100% waste free by 2032 according to National Geographic, and intends to do so by creating huge recycling and energy programs that utilize every type of waste imaginable and not putting in a landfill or dump. I think the United States is unfortunately preoccupied with other massive and crippling social issues, that we cannot even begin to tackle the wsate issues we face, but hopefully in the near future we can start to make a dent in the amount of waste we produce each year.