Gypsy Camp Blog

Among the timeless teachings in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, he stated that a city set on a hill cannot be hidden. A culture’s guiding principles are readily open to view, with some facets more easily interpreted than others. In a modern time twist on these words, images come to mind of the mini cities that have sprung up on the growing refuse heaps in places like Calcutta and Mexico City. Wealthier citizens have the option of living in walled compounds or districts that shut out this view. But the truth of it is that if most major cities did a little digging, it would not be long before garbage from the past would be unearthed.

Man has a habit of building on the past, both figuratively and literally. Some societies just do a better job of concealing the sordid aspect of this than others. With common enough frequency, there are stirs in the news media over the findings of previous civilization beneath a new gargantuan construction project. The archaeological excitement generated over shards of a colonial chamber pot elevate that object to an historical importance its users would never have imagined possible.

Detritus has been a mainstay in civilizations’ building techniques since the time of Ur, regardless of how materially affluent or simple the community may have been. Archaeologists and historians try to piece mysteries of the past together by dig findings but some remain impenetrable to their understanding. There are mounds in different parts of the world that still defy interpretation, leaving these specialists in a quandary as to whether this structure had ceremonial significance or it purpose was primarily that of a dumping ground.

This begs the question of what archaeologists and anthropologists of the future will conclude about our culture today that is laced with landfills. Will the contents of these mounds be a quick read for scholars, or will they be left shaking their heads in bewilderment, unsure of how to decipher the code that lies within? Certainly a prevalent question will rise as to what the possible meaning could be of the disproportionate presence of a certain fetid plastic-skinned paper product, what we would readily recognize as discarded adult diapers.

Statistics tell us that nearly 10% of today’s household trash consists of diapers. Some claim that baby diapers make up about 3% of that total; adult diapers adding up to the remaining 7%. At the time of this writing, that particular adult diaper stat seems a tad exaggerated. But there is no doubt that with the tail end of the baby boomers quickly shifting into their senior years and with their life expectancy on the rise, this adult diaper figure will soon be surpassed. Currently, diapers are the third largest source of landfill waste. It stands to reason that as the bottoms these nappies serve get bigger in both size and number, the bigger their allotted landfill space will need to be.

An aluminum can takes about 200 years to completely break down under typical landfill conditions. Shockingly, an adult diaper takes the same amount of time, more in some calculations, to disintegrate under the same circumstances. Oxygen is a key element for decomposition to take place and well maintained landfills ironically starve the garbage of this necessary ingredient. To manage the putrid nastiness of a landfill and to keep the public’s health as shielded from their trash as much as possible, many landfill sites try to apply a six inch layer of soil over the top of daily dumpings. This oxygen depriving burial and compacting works in tandem with public health efforts to keep oxidizing water out and leachate in, and leads to what is known as “dry tomb effect”. Refuse is inadvertently mummified, making for fascinating future archaeology, especially when considering the inevitable density of adult diapers that will be encountered.

Considering the nature of its content’s bulk, it is appropriate that the name” brownfield” is the official ecology term for an abandoned landfill site. As cities’ expansion needs are felt over the years, what was once a collection of undesirable acres will be given a new life and developers’ plans will help citizens forget the unsavory origins of these mounds. Jettisoned adult diapers, broken mix masters and old box springs will form the underpinnings of exciting new community centers and history will once again be overwritten by cities set on hills.

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