Lavish Landfill Lacks Little

(Montrose, CO — Trash and Refuse Review — January 19, 2016)

The vital Montrose County Landfill is slated to expand operations and don a new face for 2016. The facility, endearingly called the dump by its devoted clientele will now be indoors, well lighted and computerized.

The concept of a trash dome is not a new one to the landfill industry although it may be the first time many progressive elements have been employed.

“Everyone knows that the bird is the word,” chimed in one particularly tattered employee, referencing the popular 1964 classic by The Trashmen

Proponents acknowledge the cost and impact on the litter-friendly community but insist that it is the only way to keep the climate constant. Most people agree that the best dumps are those that are not windy, dusty or muddy.

The dome is designed so as to control the spread of flies by denying the bothersome insects hiding places and breeding spots that are plentiful in the open-air variety.

Becoming the first lighted 24-hour trash facility was not easy. First the county had to apply for a federal all-night license. Then there were the access fees paid to the city and the paperwork that had to be filed with the state. Happily, persistence, logic and a strong battle plan won out over a drooping bureaucracy and physical laws governing gravity and lunar intrusions.

The lights are left on by the second shift then turned off by the people that show up at 7 am to monitor the facility in daylight hours. That’s when they count the piles. Everyone knows that storage of the garbage is foremost in the blueprint and the county plans to keep cost down and overruns to a minimum by keeping precise records of what is dumped each day.

The computer system, paid for by taxpayers, runs between $300,000 and $400,000 but one of the developers of the idea has a brother-in-law in Grand Junction that can get it for 10% off. It can effectively scan a load of debris and categorize its content instantly, leaving landfill attendants free to drive around on their dozers all day.

A shopping mall, at the north entrance of the dump, complete with fast food courts and games for the kids, could be completed as early as next spring when a Grand Opening is slated.

Commemorative glassware emblazed with “Old Garbage Men Fly Longer”, “I

Love the Landfill and “I’d Rather be Dumping” are already for sale at John’s Flea and Fly at the south exit next to the cellular store and Erma’s Coiffures. The popular “Life is a Heap” T-shirts, that sold out in ten minutes last week are available exclusively through the San Juan Horseshoe, a local paper that has declared itself, among other things as “official newspaper of the Montrose County Landfill Project.”
– Mercy Plaine