It is an experience valuable to anyone who has ever bought, consumed, stored or thrown away anything.  About 300 tons of stuff a day gets buried for much longer than the time period from raw material extraction and refinement to product usage and disposal.  Actually, it’s buried forever after being compacted by a massive vehicle with spikes on its wheels.
The Millersville Landfill & Resource Recovery Facility opened 35 years ago and has about 10 years left before reaching capacity, but recycling may extend that.  I’ve always thought the costs are high for the amount of energy and water consumed during various recycling processes, but I also expect that curbside collection costs will be much higher when we have to start shipping that stuff somewhere (hmm, a few countries come to mind).  If you can’t bring yourself to take the kids on a field trip to Millersville, here’s the county’s video with landfill machinery at work and a perspective on recycling.

Most important this week is the news that next week Arundel Business News will take a break so the editor can find his inner peace at one of the Chesapeake Bay’s great destinations, Herrington Harbour.