Yesterday’s Richmond Times-Dispatch published the seemingly alarming news (“Virginia is for Dumpers“) that shipments of trash from other states to Virginia increased 18 percent in 2004, reaching 7.8 million tons. That includes everything from household trash and construction debris to medical waste and treated human waste. Virginia now retains the dubious distinction of being the No. 2 trash importer, behind Pennsylvania, in the country.
I know this really upsets my friends in the environmental community, but I just don’t get it. Trash has to go somewhere, doesn’t it? What difference does it make if it winds up in a landfill in New York or Virginia? It’s not as if we Virginians have to smell the stuff. We wouldn’t even know it was there if the T-D didn’t tell us!
I have a laissez-faire attitude towards the shipping and disposal of trash as long as–and this is an important qualification–it’s dumped in properly regulated landfills that protect the groundwater from leachate and the neighbors from nasty odors. As best as I can tell, Virginia’s massive, industrial-sized landfills have done a great job. If they didn’t, we would have heard about it.
Actually, I regard the trash disposal business as a good thing. I marvel that New Yorkers and other out-of-staters are actually paying us cash money to take their garbage. The big landfills are located in poor, out-of-the-way jurisdictions like Charles City and Amelia, and pay the localities handsomely for the privilege. The greater the volume of trash, the higher the payments to these localities, allowing them to support higher levels of services–especially funding for schools–than they otherwise could afford. If New Yorkers want to subsidize the education of Virginia children because no one wants landfills in the Empire State, that’s fine with me.
