I’ve been thinking about trash this morning, and as I googled around the Internet I found this page about the City of Tampa Historic Landfill Assessment Program.
Here is some background about the project.
“Previous studies have identified 49 landfills located in Hillsborough County, Florida that were used for solid waste disposal between 1947 and 1978. It is believed that many of the landfills were used and/or operated by the City of Tampa (the City). These landfills actually served as a secondary means of waste disposal, since the primary means of solid waste processing, during this period of time, was incineration. Originally, most of these landfills were located near the outer extent of the City boundaries as they existed at that time. However, later expansion has resulted in many of these landfills now being located well within developed areas of the City. In many cases, these areas have been subsequently developed for industrial, residential, commercial, and recreational uses.”
Many of these sites, especially the older ones, have already been paved over and had structures built on top of them. One purpose of the historic landfill analysis was to see if any of them were leaking anything toxic into the well water.
This map from the website shows the location of historic landfills, but I only count 47 marked spots.
Here’s another map that shows 20 locations. (Click through for a larger version.) If you look up each individual historic landfill a map is provided of that spot.
I’m not exactly sure when the city posted this information on the web. I think the investigators did most of their work in the mid-1990s. There’s a certain amount on linkrot on the site, but most of the information seems available if you just come at it from a different page.
Here is a table that lists the locations, the years the landfill closed, and what’s there now. The table also tells you if a site was used for trash, garbage, or both. The difference between trash and garbage? Garbage comes from the bathroom or kitchen and has food, waste, or anything an animal might find delicious. Trash is everything else.
