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The Central Landfill of Sonoma County is the site of my contribution to the Marketplace theme. There are many different marketplaces, both literal and figurative, that come to mind for this theme, but one thing that I kept coming back to: where does everything go? Modern humans are a very consumer-oriented species with citizens of the United States as the global leaders in consumption. I go to a big box warehouse and purchase a small Compact Flash card for my camera and it comes encased in a plastic package that could literally hold 1,000 of these memory cards. I come home from the market and use the product or the food and put the packaging in the recycling bin or the trash. Once a week I wheel my refuse out to the curb where a series of trucks come and pick it up - one for trash, one for recycling, one for yard waste. But where does it go after that? In Sonoma County, the Central Landfill just north of my home-town of Petaluma, has been the main location for that refuse for a long time. The hill in the distance in front of the tractor-trailer (about 90° left of the opening view) actually used to be a valley! There have been many improvements over the years in waste disposal. As we learn more about our environment, methods are introduced to better coexist and limit the negative impacts of this necessary byproduct of our consumer-driven society. The first 'pile' started at the lowest spot in an easy-to-access area where garbage could be 'disappeared'. There was no consideration for lining the pit or worrying about groundwater or where runoff goes. Now the active section of the landfill is lined by plastic sheets that collect water that runs through the garbage and other 'leachate' which is then taken to a wastewater treatment facility. The old pile has wells all over it that pull up both the leachate and methane. The methane is taken to an on-site co-generation plant where it is converted to 8 megawatts of electricity (enough for 8,000 homes) and is used to power the buildings on site and even feed power back into the California electricity grid. 'Waste Diversion' is the buzz phrase at the county landfill. There is a large recycling and reuse area on site called 'Recycletown'. You can drop off items that can be reused and it will be sorted and resold at a small cost. Numerous sizable recycling bins are always in use. Appliances are processed for recycling and proper disposal, they are not dumped directly into the landfill. Yard waste and construction debris are processed and resold as mulch. In general, they attempt to keep as much out of the actual landfill as possible. With this submission to the World Wide Panorama I am not attempting to make a statement or a judgement of our society, I am merely seeking to remind all of us to consider what happens to those things that we pay others to take away from our homes and businesses. Please remember to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle whenever possible. Special thanks to Clyde Galantine for the very informative personal tour that he gave me of a place that is just behind the hills, but out of the minds of many of us. Behind the scene : how this panorama was made
More panoramas from my day at the Sonoma County Landfill. 360Geographics - Panoramas from all over North America of tourist destinations and places off the beaten path. 
Shortcut to this page: http://worldwidepanorama.org/wwp_rss/go/n779
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