Unalaska may have one of the nation’s most stunning landfills. Bald eagles call to each other overhead as long lines of trash, stacked up in off-white bales, enjoy sweeping views of Iliuliuk Harbor and the surrounding mountains.
At the landfill’s baling facility, dump trucks unload at a big bay door at the front of a tall metal building. Residents drop their trash off here, too.
On a recent Tuesday afternoon, Public Utilities Director Erik Hernandez watched as a worker in a loader began to process the trash. Hernandez said they were checking for hazardous materials or large items that might damage their machinery.
“They'll drag it back, push it forward, and what they're doing is they're trying to separate each bag to see what's inside,” Hernandez said.
The loader pushed the trash onto a conveyor belt, which carried it to the top of a chute that feeds the baling machine. There, it was cut apart and compressed.
Within four minutes, all of that loose garbage had been squeezed into a 2,500-pound cube, a bit bigger than a washer and dryer side-by-side, and then packed into a heavy duty bag. That’s one bale of trash.
This summer, the city removed 1,200 tons of scrap metal and 250 cars from the island by barge. But most of the community’s trash stays on the island.
Once baled, the trash goes on a flatbed for a short drive to the landfill. Depending on the time of year, the facility will produce up to 45 bales a day.
A lot of landfill operators don’t bale their garbage. But in Unalaska,where storms often bring hurricane-force winds, baling keeps it from blowing away.
At the landfill, the rows of bales stood on what looked like dirt – technically, it’s a “classified soil material.” Underneath, layers of trash and classified material extended about 40 feet deep.
Edward McDuffie, Unalaska’s solid waste supervisor, said they filled over 8,000 cubic yards of space last year.
“A lot of folks don't know, airspace is the most expensive thing in a landfill,” he said.
That’s because creating lined landfill space is so expensive. Mismanaging it will cause it to fill up more quickly.
One particularly expensive part of landfill construction and operation has to do with secondary waste called leachate – the polluted liquid that seeps down through all the trash. A system of pipes and liners capture the leachate and pump it to a storage tank for processing. Then it heads into the city’s wastewater treatment system.
The active section of the landfill is expected to be full by 2030. Last year, consultants found that opening up more landfill space would last the city until about 2069. They said the first expansion would cost around $2.9 million.
The city is working on a new comprehensive plan.Planning Director Cameron Dean says increasing landfill capacity and repurposing waste diverted from the landfill have been identified as plan goals.
For now, Unalaska households pay about $40 a month in landfill fees, plus more for commodities like metal and wood. Seafood processors and other businesses on the island pay per ton.
“It’s not magic. Everybody puts it out or drops it off and thinks it just vanishes. But oh no, there’s a process,” McDuffie said.
McDuffie said reusing, repurposing, and recycling are critical for preserving finite landfill space.
