Monmouth County Reclamation Center

Today was very interesting. I have signed up to become a Master Composter. We must attend three training dates. Today was our first and we had a very interesting tour of our county landfill. We saw the garbage dumped just this morning. The dumping area was about the size of two football fields and about a third of it was piled high with garbage. It is then bailed and put into the landfill very neatly. Pipes in the ground allow gas from the decomposing garbage to be turned into electricity and used here for their operations.

We had a bus tour of the landfill area and it was truly a beautiful scenic area. We were told years in the future this area could become a wildlife refuge. The photo shows us on top of a landfill. There was no oder. The bales of garbage are covered each day. The new garbage in the dumping area did smell. Realizing the expense of handling garbage and all that is involved makes composting seem all the more important today.