New York is running out of room for its waste even with Statue of Liberty sized landfill

Detailed summary

One company is proposing elongating the life of the dump, pungent smell and all, several more decadesAs a visual representation of how New York is running out of places to put its…

One company is proposing elongating the life of the dump, pungent smell and all, several more decades

As a visual representation of how New York is running out of places to put its waste, the largest active landfill in the state is a striking one. The hulking Seneca Meadows landfill is already the height of the Statue of Liberty and its operators are seeking to raise it even further, to the consternation of nearby residents.

The landfill, situated in the scenic Finger Lakes region in the northern reaches of New York state, has grown since the 1980s to now sprawl across 350 acres of deposited trash, mounded up to the height of around 300ft – roughly the same height of the Statue of Liberty.

“All around the lakes is pretty flat until you see this monster of a hill,” said Mark Pitifer, a marketing administrator at Waterloo Containers, a glass packaging company that sits next to the landfill and is dwarfed by its neighbor. “I mean it’s incredible, it’s like being in downtown New York City only instead of a building, it’s trash.”

Locals in the nearby towns of Waterloo and Seneca Falls, the latter famed as the birthplace of the women’s rights movement in the US, had hoped the bulging landfill would be closed when its permit expired last year. But the operator, Texas-based Waste Connections, has proposed elongating the life of the landfill for several more decades via 47 acres of newly lined disposal cells and adding another 70ft to the trash heap’s height.

As New York state authorities mull whether to grant this expansion, the landfill has become a central point of grievance over the pungent smell, water pollution and planet-heating pollution given off by the places we dump our rubbish. Seneca Meadows is now the largest source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, in the state, according to a study last year based on researchers using aircraft measurements.

The operator, Waste Connections, did not respond to questions from the Guardian; it defends its environmental protections…

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