>> [Host Joe Hanson]
Americans produce 4.9 pounds
of waste per person per day. That's nearly 600 billion
pounds per year. Where does it all go? It goes to places like this. The mountains of trash we throw
away can have huge impacts on our environment and climate. But what if I told you that
all of this waste could one day power a city? [synth music] ♪ >> [Joe] Welcome to Las Vegas,
the place for glitz, glam, gambling and garbage. Three main categories of waste
are solid waste, recyclables, and food waste. And here in the neon city,
we're going to explore the ways they're turning each of these
trash types into treasure. Las Vegas produces more than
five billion pounds of waste per year, and all that trash
ends up here. The Apex Landfill lies in the
mountains beyond the city. At 1900 acres, it's one
of the largest landfills in North America, and also one of the busiest. Apex is one of the only
landfills in North America that runs 24 hours a day, seven days
a week, 365 days a year. As many as 250 trucks enter the
landfill each day and deliver up to 16 million pounds
of waste. It used to be a place like this
was called a dump, and that's exactly
what they were. trash dumped in piles with
little regard for sanitation. As trash decays,
it produces methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. The dumps of yesteryear
all but ignored this, as well as other
environmental problems. But today's landfills are
feats of engineering. They are long-term storehouses
for society's garbage and places where we manage
its potential hazards. >> [David Vossmer]:
It would be comparable to a
construction site, where you're building homes in a
neighborhood. We would envision an entire
city being built basically as a landfill. >> [Joe]: David Vossmer has been
working in the solid waste industry for 42 years and
oversees operations at Apex. >> [David]:
The working face is the
active area of the landfill, usually anywhere from two to
three acres in size. >> [Joe]:
Each truck that dumps its
load carries about 30 tons of garbage. Compactors then take
that trash, spread it across
the working face, and mash it down. >> [David]:
Each one of those machines
is about 120 to 130,000 pounds. There's a lot of weight that
will smash all the cardboard boxes or trash or any other
material that comes in. It'll lay it down
in a nice, even layer. That's what the landfill
business is trying to do, get as much compacted waste
into that area or that acre that we can. That's what extends
the life of the landfill. >> [Joe]: As more and
more trash comes in, the landfill grows in height. >> [David]:
It's just like building a
pyramid. The wider the base, the higher we can go with the
trash here in the landfill. >> [Joe]:
In some areas, the local
landfill is the highest point in the region. Here in Vegas, this mountain of
trash is 500 feet high and rising taller by the day. In spite of the enormous volume
of garbage coming in, the landfill will be able
to take in trash for another 300 plus years. How is that possible? Not only is the site large,
but it's also growing. A mining company on site digs
out the surrounding mountains. In the process, it expands
the landfill's footprint and the space it has to operate. But the best way to keep a
landfill from filling up is to waste less. Las Vegas boasts
the largest residential recycling center
in North America. The state-of-the-art
facility takes in up to 1.8 million pounds
of recyclables per day. Because Las Vegas uses
single stream recycling, all the sorting happens here. These recyclables will get
conveyed through a complex system of sorting machines. >> [Jeremy Walters]:
We have some very unique
pieces of equipment, things that do just simple
mechanical separation through disks and screens, but we also have
computerized machines that are physically
reading the material based on its color
and density. It's very smart,
and it's very quick. After a machine initially
separates material, people quality control
what the machine did. They're physically looking
at the material to ensure that the machine
sorted correctly and there are no contaminants within that final product. >> [Joe]:
A new challenge confronting
recycling centers like this is the Amazon effect. Facilities around the country
are being inundated with cardboard from
online retailers. Here at this facility,
they've had to recalibrate their machines and processes
just to handle the deluge. While 1.8 million pounds
of daily recyclables might sound like a lot, it's still just a fraction
of the overall waste that gets created each day. Food is another thing that
inundates the waste stream and doesn't belong
in a landfill. Las Vegas is renowned buffets
produce a lot of it. But here in Sin City, they've
found an innovative solution. It's not just people
who pig out on buffets. The residents of the Las Vegas
Livestock Farm enjoy it too. The farm sits on Apex property, but is family-owned. >> [Hank Combs]:
Hog farming in Nevada
is not very popular, because of the access to feed. We've circumvented that by
doing the food scrap route, which is a very sustainable way to raise our hogs. >> [Joe]:
They take in up to
40,000 pounds per day of the casinos' food waste. Everything from lobster to
ice cream gets processed in giant cookers to make
it safe for the hogs to eat. This fragrant stew won't make
the menu in any casino, but it's irresistible
to these hogs. I mean, yummy. >> [Hank]:
They're a lot like a human,
so they love their sweets and their meat and the potatoes. They're not too big on salads. They won't eat anything.
They're picky. >> [Joe]:
It's not just food waste
that's finding a second life in Vegas. The garbage is too. In the U.S., landfills like
this account for nearly 20% of the human-caused
methane emissions. Some landfills capture
and burn it. But here at Apex, and at a growing number of landfills around the country, they're turning it into energy. 160 wells have been drilled
into this mountain of trash, some as deep as 200 feet. The wells siphon off the gas
coming from landfill. After it's purified, it's sent
to an onsite power plant where it's burned to spin
turbines, which create energy. That energy is fed back
into the electric grid and powers 11,000 homes
here in Southern Nevada. The total amount of
energy produced annually by U.S. landfills powers the equivalent
of more than 1 million homes. >> [Jeremy]:
We're actually able to take
something that is always going to exist in a landfill,
and turn it into something that the community
can benefit from. Most people go day to day
without thinking about the trash or the recyclables that they make. It's just a simple toss
it in the bin and forget about it. And there's so much involved behind the scenes to make sure that
we are handling all those materials in the most
environmentally responsible way. >> [David]:
Not everything in our world
is recyclable. And as long as society
throws things away, we're one of the things that take care of making sure it's done the right way. >> [Joe]: Hey guys, our PBS friends across YouTube are celebrating
Earth Day with us. Follow me over to Reactions to find out why
catalytic converters are being stolen
from cars worldwide, and what this weird mystery
has to do with the health of our environment. Tell them Joe sent you. And one more thing, for
those of you in the U.S., you should check out "Greta Thunberg: A Year
to Change the World," a new three-hour Earth Day
broadcast event on your local PBS station. The special is
going to premiere on Thursday, April 22nd
at 8:00 pm, 7:00 pm Central, and will then repeat starting Wednesday, April 28th at
8:00 pm, 7:00 pm Central. See you then.
Super interesting! Thanks for posting
Impressive! I'm a proud Las Vegan.
Wow, this was super interesting. Thanks for the share
....by not picking it up?....
Very interesting. You don't see a lot of filming of landfills, though I remember Mike Rowe going to that hog farm on Dirty Jobs.
Thank you! Before seeing this video, I still had my doubts about Vegas/Henderson recycling actions and real follow through. I'm a believer now! 😀😀 I had no idea about the energy being produced as well. Great share! 🤓