My drive to Bristol Mountain this weekend for a ski race took me west on Rt. 5 & 20 past the Onondaga County landfill. With me in the car were two first-year teammates who are not familiar with the area around Geneva. As we approached the landfill one of my teammates asked discussed, “awwe man, who ripped one?” I explained that no one had ‘ripped one’, and that it was the smell of a large landfill behind the pine tree-covered bank on the south side of the road. As a team we had been past the landfill several times previously and neither had noticed it until then, when the wind direction and smell brought it to their attention. This made me consider how people with an untrained eye ignore and or just don’t notice the significant trash infrastructure around Geneva. As a student in G of G with a trained eye and awareness, I had noticed at least 5 large garbage tractor-trailers pass us, undoubtedly just having just tipped their load at the landfill.

To their credit is fairly well hidden from 5 & 20 by trees and a high bank. However, on the way back I turned south down on of the roads going past the east side of the landfill. The sight from there was much more obvious with garbage flying everywhere getting caught in the nets, and workers walking around retrieving the runaway trash. Overall I can see how my teammates hadn’t noticed any of this trash stuff, but if you do look, it is everywhere.