Along with the stock market and the foreclosure rate, a less-heralded barometer has signaled the arrival of hard times: the landfill.
In an extravagantly wasteful society that typically puts 254 million tons of unwanted stuff at the curb to be thrown away each year, landfill managers say they knew something was amiss in the economy when they saw trash levels start steadily dropping last year. Now, some are reporting declines as sharp as 30 percent.
“The trash man is the first one to know about a recession because we see it first,” said Richard Weber, manager of the Loudoun County, Va., landfill. “Circuit City’s closing, so people aren’t going there and buying those big boxes of stuff and throwing away all that Styrofoam and shrink-wrap ... and whatever they were replacing.”
Trash volume has dropped so much, Weber said, that instead of running out of space in 2012, as had been projected, the Loudoun landfill will gain a year and a half or so of use.
“That’s huge,” he said.
Domino effect
It’s all part of the cycle of stuff that people in the trash business say they’ve seen in every economic downturn since the end of World War II. People don’t buy stuff, so there’s less packaging — which typically makes up one-third of all landfill trash — to toss.
With a drop in demand, manufacturers make less, creating less waste. More vacant homes and fewer people in a community mean less trash. A stagnant housing market means less construction debris.
On tight budgets, people eat out less, so restaurants order less, so there’s less to throw away. Landscapers are out of work, so there’s less yard debris.
Even in Virginia, which takes in more out-of-state garbage than any state save one, trash men began noticing declines in late 2007 of 10 to 20 percent.
“And normally garbage is a pretty steady business because everybody wants to get rid of it,” said Richard Doucette, a waste program manager with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. Now, he said, some landfills are laying off workers.
Finally, said Ben Boxer, spokesman for Fairfax County’s solid waste management program, the economy is forcing people to heed the environmentalists’ mantra: Reduce! Reuse! Recycle! Repair!
“A lot of these things that people throw away do have a valuable second life,” he said, “especially for those who, now more than ever, are going to be facing difficult times.”
Read the rest of the story at: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/6311900.html
In an extravagantly wasteful society that typically puts 254 million tons of unwanted stuff at the curb to be thrown away each year, landfill managers say they knew something was amiss in the economy when they saw trash levels start steadily dropping last year. Now, some are reporting declines as sharp as 30 percent.
“The trash man is the first one to know about a recession because we see it first,” said Richard Weber, manager of the Loudoun County, Va., landfill. “Circuit City’s closing, so people aren’t going there and buying those big boxes of stuff and throwing away all that Styrofoam and shrink-wrap ... and whatever they were replacing.”
Trash volume has dropped so much, Weber said, that instead of running out of space in 2012, as had been projected, the Loudoun landfill will gain a year and a half or so of use.
“That’s huge,” he said.
Domino effect
It’s all part of the cycle of stuff that people in the trash business say they’ve seen in every economic downturn since the end of World War II. People don’t buy stuff, so there’s less packaging — which typically makes up one-third of all landfill trash — to toss.
With a drop in demand, manufacturers make less, creating less waste. More vacant homes and fewer people in a community mean less trash. A stagnant housing market means less construction debris.
On tight budgets, people eat out less, so restaurants order less, so there’s less to throw away. Landscapers are out of work, so there’s less yard debris.
Even in Virginia, which takes in more out-of-state garbage than any state save one, trash men began noticing declines in late 2007 of 10 to 20 percent.
“And normally garbage is a pretty steady business because everybody wants to get rid of it,” said Richard Doucette, a waste program manager with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. Now, he said, some landfills are laying off workers.
Finally, said Ben Boxer, spokesman for Fairfax County’s solid waste management program, the economy is forcing people to heed the environmentalists’ mantra: Reduce! Reuse! Recycle! Repair!
“A lot of these things that people throw away do have a valuable second life,” he said, “especially for those who, now more than ever, are going to be facing difficult times.”
Read the rest of the story at: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/6311900.html
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