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New Jersey County Fights Landfill Odors Using Fragrant Spray Trucks
Not to be outdone by the Chinese and their deodorant guns, Middlesex County, New Jersey has unveiled their secret weapon against landfill stink, a perfume spraying truck. The flatbed truck equipped with special nozzles now drives around the 200-plus acre landfill spraying hundreds of gallons of a soapy, slightly citrus-scented liquid. From the article: "'It has a pleasant, showery smell,' said Richard Fitamant, executive director of the Middlesex County Utilities Authority, which runs the landfill. 'It's not offensive and it's not overpowering. It's a light scent.' Faced with a competing mandate to handle the loads of trash while curbing the stench, officials have turned to the roving, over-sized air freshener to control the smells wafting from the 200-plus acre landfill."
Look at your landfill, now look back at me...
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler. - Albert Einstein
Instead of consuming and throwing away less and living sustainably, our future is Febreze. If only that were a solution to the floating garbage island in the pacific.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Yes, it would be a shame if this stuff ended up ruining the fragile ecosystem of the landfill.
Instead of dealing with a pollution problem by attenuating or removing it at its source, a new source of pollution is added, an additional detoxification load on local residents' livers and kidneys. Why do we have so much cancer, asthma, and many other pollution-related diseases? Can it be that it is an utterly stupid idea to add more contaminants to our environment rather than zealously trying to reduce them? How scalable is this? Will we add more airborne chemicals to the home, the workplace, our cars, and everywhere else there is an unpleasant odor? Do people think these things are innocuous just because nobody falls down dead right away?
You'll still be able to smell the trash, you'll just be able to smell the other stuff as well now.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
I'd like to know how much of this trash comes from New Jersey and how much comes from New York City.
NYC handles little of its trash in the city, a minority of it in New York state, and otherwise sends it all into New Jersey, on barges and rail cars to Tennessee and Virginia, etc. Pretty much every sanitation policy of NYC constitutes a fiscal and environmental disaster. New Jersey may be wasteful and rude as well, for all I know, but I'm betting the majority of the extra trash comes from New York. This problem just might disappear if New York were to construct a few of the (profoundly environmentally friendly and electricity producing) new models of incinerator or build landfills in their own damn state. I'm not from any state discussed in my rant, by the way; I just think New York is an all-consuming, wasteful jerk of a city.
Since it is Jersey, there is a more than decent chance that it will smell like Axe body spray.
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
I think New Jersey is probably the butt of more jokes than Poland. Now even more so.
Why not the whole state?
FAQs are evil.
Doing this is possibly a violation of Federal law:
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Why not the whole state?
Because a lot of the state is actually quite nice. Woods, rivers, lakes, trails, beaches ... Small/medium sized towns and suburbs filled with trees or on the coast ... The run down industrial areas that you see on the Sopranos and the tourist oriented areas you see on Jersey Shore are the exceptions, not the rule. There are lots of jokes about the industrial and tourist areas, many from New Jersey residents, but there are also some pretty nice areas that ex-presidents retire to, executives working out of NYC live in, etc. There are also a lot of nice places for middle class budgets.
My girlfriend told me to kiss her where it stinks, so I took her to New Jersey.
Be relentless!
Rotting food is not pollution. The problem isn't the smell, the problem is the number of people moving in closer and closer to the landfill. Wow! this house is only $150k! Whats that smell?!? We should complain!! Darn landfills making me not want to live in my cheap house that's right by the landfill!!!
I've seen similar issues in California. Homes gets nearer and nearer to Air Force and Navy bases and then the new residents complain about planes flying around at 3am. The Air Force and Navy bases were explicitly acknowledged in their signed disclosures but people have literally been quoted in the newspapers saying things like: I knew about the base but I never imagined they would be flying around in the middle of the night.
"The flatbed truck equipped with special nozzles ..."
Hello -- "special" troll here with a special alert.
This perfume-dispensing nozzle is not special. It does what every other nozzle does: nozzle stuff. Nothing "special" about it.
If what you really mean is "I'm super-impressed by this nozzle, because it's doing nozzle stuff I've never dreamed of before," then say that instead.
Thank you for your cooperation.
-kgj
If near term cost is the only concern, all you do is create more problems. They could build a geodesic dome over the land fill, and burn the methane and turn that smell into energy, but that would require investment.. They could start separating the trash and recycling, while keeping biological waste in compost heaps that reduce the smell, but that would require investment.
America is basically like a 7-11 that's about to go under. The shelves are barely stocked, the sign has been broken for months, and nobody really gives a shit because they've been watching the boss raid the cash drawer for years.