Take a Walk at Ivy Creek

White Trail
Ecology in Action

2. On the White Trail, the old farm landfill is on your left.

Our Legacy

Inevitably, man marks his dwelling places with trash dumps. Here alongside the trail are rusty cans, broken bottles, pottery fragments, machinery parts, and other farm discards. Frost heave and erosion continue to unearth that which was buried long ago.

Note what is and is not in this landfill. There are no plastics as this dump pre-dates their use. All items readily biodegradable are long gone. The metal items are in the process of decaying but may take another fifty years or so to disappear. The glass and pottery, on the other hand, look untouched. One can only speculate how long it will take for them to decompose. Some say a million years or more.

More than 60% of municipal solid waste is recyclable, yet only about 13% of it gets recycled. This spot is a reminder to REDUCE, REUSE, and RECYCLE.

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