I’ve been seeing pic after pic of all the damage done by Sandy and it got me wondering what will happen to all that stuff–the moldy furniture piled on the sidewalks, the sodden vehicles, and the smashed boardwalks?
Surely all of that doesn’t go to landfills, does it?
What happened to all that stuff after Katrina?
We had big fields that everything got piled into…and then eventually into landfills…after Hurricane Wilma. It was actually a little impressive to see.
-D/a
Isn’t that where New Jersey came from in the first place?
Yes, it goes into landfills but modern landfills aren’t simple open open trash heaps by any means as long as they are properly managed. You can fit an enormous amount of semi-compressed material into just a few acres out of sight. From there, the landfill has a long-life liner to prevent groundwater contamination and soil is added as parts of it become full to make it completely environmentally stable. Once most things are burred tightly in a landfill, the conditions are mostly anaerobic so that it doesn’t decompose at all for many decades if not longer. All of it will eventually get covered over after the landfill is full to make stable land again that may be used for things like open space parks.
If you are worried about environmental damage from the refuse, that doesn’t happen much from properly managed landfills. If you are just worried about an eyesore, that is taken care of too because it is hidden for now and will be converted to useful land after it is full.
The environmental damage from trash comes from the manufacturing of replacement goods and not those that were destroyed. Those that were destroyed probably did more damage in aggregate sitting where they were than when are sealed in a landfill.
Title edited to indicate subject.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Tsunami debris from Japan washed ashore in Hawaii about 6 months later. I don’t know if any of the hurricane debris ends up in the water, though.
It goes the same place that regular trash collection goes. There’s just more of it all at one time.
So, for example, the moldy furniture will go just like any worn-out or damaged furniture does, something trash collectors encounter every week of the year.
In most locations, that means it ends up in landfills. (But like Shagnasty said, modern-type landfills.) here in Minneapolis, MN, it would end up in the garbage burner downtown, and be converted to energy. In other places, much of it would be recovered for recycling: furniture and wood boardwalks become firewood; vehicles & other metals are recycled & melted down, etc. The fact that it’s much more all at once usually won’t matter; recyclers, garbage burners, & landfills generally have some open holding area where excess ‘gargage’ can be held until processed.
Well played! 
. . . and hasn’t changed at all.
During Katrina, they used giant mechanical “scissors,” really multiple steel discs with sharpened edges mounted beside each other and turning in opposite directions to chew up fallen trees and plant debris. Said the resulting mound of choppings would be sold for mulch.
I live in New Orleans, but wasn’t here when Katrina happened. For Isaac this year, we had some weird garbage truck with a grabby claw thing that came around about a week after the storm. It took stuff that the garbage men would normally not take, such as large pieces of furniture, siding, and tree branches.