News 12 This Morning, April 29, 2009

AUGUSTA, Ga.-- It's a place many people have never seen, but if you live in Richmond County, you probably add to it every day.

"Five, six years ago we were dumping on this site here, and I think there was another hill around the corner there. But I see where they've moved around over here, so that shows you in a decade how much trash it collects in a decade, it's quite a bit," Gary Weaver said.

When you drive into the Augusta Richmond County Solid Waste Facility, every vehicle is weighed at the scale house. This way they know how much trash comes into the landfill.

Then, truck drivers make their way up to the mountain of trash also called a cell and dump the trash. The bulldozer pushes it up the hill and layers it into the landfill, and the 103,000 pound trash compacter drives up and down the hill smashing the trash into the ground. It's like building a pyramid.

Within the year, the cell will be filled, and that's why they're building a new cell right behind it. All of the new trash cells are lined on the bottom, that insures nothing soaks into the ground, and that hopefully protects the ground water from contamination.

"Think of a landfill as a large Ziploc bag. Our closed landfills actually look like that because they're lined on the bottom and lined on top. It's fused around the edges so it looks like a large Ziploc bag. So all the trash is contained. Nothing's getting out," Assistant Director Solid Waste, Lori Videtto said.

The Augusta Richmond County Solid Waste Facility sits on 1,200 acres. They take in 1,200 tons of trash a day from residents in the area.

"We're designed to take in that much and more. So we have 300 acres of permanent air space, which means we'll be here for another 100 years. We're not going anywhere anytime soon," Videtto said.

Every day they are required to cover the trash with dirt or tarps, which keeps the smell down.

Recycling is free in Richmond County. If you don't have a recycle bin, you can go to the drop-off site at the landfill.