Friday April 29 we visited the headquarters of Texas Disposal Systems, near Austin, and site of one of the largest landfills in the country. But this landfill is really WILD!
The TDS landfill receives 2-3000 tonnes of waste every day
The landfill which was recently voted best in USA receives around 640,000 tonnes of waste per annum of which around 200,000 tonnes is recycled. Recycling and resource recovery includes composting of organics, operation of a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) to process comingled recyclables, recovery of metals, sorting and crushing of Construction and Demolition wastes (C&D), and recovery of some materials from Commercial and Industrial wastes (C&I). A landfill gas system has been installed to capture and flare methane, but due to factors such as low rainfall, recovery of organics, low porosity of soils and cover material, the landfill is very dry and biological breakdown of buried waste is unusually slow. Dennis Hobbs who showed us around the site explained that excavation of material that had been buried for many years showed little signs of decay, printed material was like new!
Dennis Hobbs shows how Texas Disposal Systems deals with yard trimmings at the landfill site.
While many waste depots employ guard dogs, Texas Disposal Systems takes this to an entirely new level!!. You don’t wanna mess with Rowdy the Rhino!
There are several novel aspects to this waste facility, not the least of which is that it serves as a premier entertainment venue, an exclusive retreat for the rich and famous and a wildlife game park!!
There are hundreds of wild animals from Africa on the site.
Some of the biggest names entertain the rich and famous at the landfill site
The gas flaring and recycling and resource recovery abates massive quantities of greenhouse gases.