Now there’s a new documentary, produced by CNBC, which tries to expose the mystery and intrigue behind waste collection.



Every day we drive past dumpsters full of waste, litter on the sides of roads, and see bits of plastic floating in our oceans. We see garbage, and there’s a lot of it. In fact, the average American generates over 4 pounds of it every day. What’s even more startling is how few people know what happens to their garbage as soon as it is taken away.

Now there’s a new documentary, produced by CNBC, which tries to expose the mystery and intrigue behind waste collection. The show, titled Trash, Inc.: the Secret Life of Garbage, follows Carl Quintanilla as he travels from landfills, to waste-to-enery plants, to recycling facilities and even to China where he uncovers a growing waste crisis.

The show, which airs September 29, 2010 at 9 p.m. ET, presents a good overview of the business behind waste, as well as some of the challenges municipalities and companies are facing across the globe.

By visiting the show’s website, you get a sense of the topics covered during the hour-long program. You can basically break it down into six categories:

• Waste Collection
• Landfills
• Enery from Waste
• Recycling
• China
• Waste in the Pacific Ocean

If you frequently read news on Greenopolis, hopefully you know a little (or a lot) about all of these topics. The show begins by following waste collection workers in New York City. Everyday they fill up garbage trucks with items left at the curb, helping to keep the streets clean. One worker, who moonlights as a professional body builder, makes over six figures a year when you include overtime pay. That may seem like a lot, but taking into consideration the kinds of materials they collect (dusty couches, 110-pound bags, etc.), and it seems well worth the price.

The show then goes to the largest landfill in the United States, which is the Apex facility in Nevada. There, Carl interviews the landfill’s manager, who explains how engineering behind landfills has changed dramatically over the years. What used to be called a “dump” is now a large structure that contains waste underneath layers of liner, clay and soil. At one point Carl makes a comment about how he can’t see the waste, to which the landfill manager replies, “That’s the idea.”

Perhaps the most startling part of the show involves the waste we can see. Carl goes to China, the second largest economy in the world, where he uncovers a waste epidemic taking place within the country.  According to the show’s website, “[China] has little infrastructure to deal with the garbage generated by 1.3 billion people.” Where does all their waste go? In many cases, it ends up on the sides of roads and in illegal disposal sites that contaminate the land where people live and raise crops.

One shocking moment happened when Carl finds a woman who is scavenging a waste pit for food to feed to her cats. It highlights a problem taking place in the county, but the show also mentions some potential solutions, like constructing waste-to-energy plants (also featured in the show).

Another waste epidemic with no clear or easy solution involves the Pacific Ocean gyre, which is keeping millions of tons of plastic floating across an area roughly twice the size as the United States (recently reported on this and other gyres found around the world). This plastic washes up onto our beaches and puts sea life at risk, since fish and birds often mistaken the shiny pieces of plastic for food. It is a growing concern, and one receiving more and more notoriety as people scrutinize the resources they are using. The show makes clear there is no easy fix to the waste floating in our oceans, but perhaps the immediate thing we all can do is put our focus on recycling.

That’s a message that carries on throughout the entire program: the importance of reuse.

All over the country, businesses are using plastic bottles to make clothing, processing tons of materials for recycling abroad, and are even using waste disposed inside a landfill to produce energy. In South Carolina, for instance, BWM is using gas created within a landfill to help power one of its factories. The energy is much cleaner than other fossil fuels, like natural gas, and saves the company $7 million annually on energy costs. It’s through innovative projects like these that waste problems can be transformed into waste solutions.

One thought that occurred to me while watching the program was why garbage has a secret life at all? Why don’t more people know about the issues surrounding the waste we throw away? The fact of the matter is, there’s a lot of information out there for people to learn. All it takes is a few hours on Google. To get you started, I’ve provided a lot of hyperlinks throughout this story, but in the meantime, be sure to tune in for The Secret Life of Garbage on CNBC. I can assure you that it won’t be a waste of time.