"Garbage. It's wonderful stuff. You can do so much with it! Harvest gas from it to fuel your airplanes, build a boat out of it and sail around the world, or make a giant junk mosaic. Heck, if you're plucky enough, you can feed a family on the stuff. If it gets too stinky, blast it with giant deodorant guns! "Waste management" kept groceries in Tony Soprano's fridge, no?
But you know what they say about too much of a good thing. When the garbage piles up, it can be bad news. Remember the Chicago couple who were buried alive under their own refuse? That was a bad day. Tons of our discarded plastic ends up floating around the ocean, and the impact of all that refuse falls disproportionately on poor people.
So it was welcome news yesterday when Mexico City announced it had closed the Bordo Poniente Landfill, one of the world's largest, where some 70 million tons of trash are piled over more than a square mile of land adjacent to the airport. The dump had been leaking nasties, pumping out greenhouse gases, and generally causing a nuisance for years.
The closure was a partnership with the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group and the Clinton Climate Initiative. In official statements, C40 head and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former President Bill Clinton rolled out the grand pronouncements. "Closing Mexico City's Bordo Poniente Landfill is one of the most important environmental actions for the entire country," declared Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard."
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