Garbage mountain

Let it be known that I like taking the road less traveled.

Or in this case, climbing the mountain less climbed.

Many years ago during my first year as a reporter, I followed a story of how a bag of money accidentally ended up at a garbage dumpsite in Cebu City. It was a super interesting story, so naturally we went to the dumpsite to follow the lead.

It was my first time to climb the slippery slopes of a mountain of trash. It was surreal to climb a mountain that wasn’t really a mountain in the first place. It was a mountain of trash— smelly, sticky, slippery, and slightly springy because of the layers and layers of garbage.

As we walked on plastic, diapers, clothes, wires, glass and other junk, the ground of the garbage mountain remained stable. Standing on top of the hill, it felt like a blow in the gut to take in the vast expanse of garbage around us. Dude, all of this came from us. I went back to the newsroom reasonably disturbed and more conscious about my waste trail.

That wasn’t my last close encounter with a trash mountain, though. A few years back, I ended up climbing the hills of Smokey Mountain because of work. We took a group of youth leaders to see the conditions then of the site and also interact with the families who lived close by. It was an emotional experience for all of us. On our way out of the site, we drove past a mountain with patches of grass, a few bundles of shrubs, and a handful of bushes. The group was quick to note that it was nice to see a green little mountain in an otherwise gut-wrenching scene of poverty, pollution and struggle.

Our guide was quick to note that, nope, sorry, that’s not a living, breathing mountain of green grass and healthy bushes. It was actually a mountain of garbage, so densely packed that shrubs have decided to grow over all the garbage.

I wasn’t sure what was sadder—seeing the mountain of garbage loom ominously over us or watching nature struggle to thrive and survive in its own home. I went home crying. Recently, I wound up at a local dumpsite again for a learning visit. It was great to see efforts to recycle and work on our waste management. However, as I climbed the all too familiar slippery road up the springy, sticky garbage hill, it was still heart-breaking to see so much waste around us.

We’ve been producing waste for years—and in vast quantities. The reality is that the waste we see at the dumpsites, along the road, in our waterways, and perhaps even just outside our doorstep—they all come from us.

And the more waste we produce, the higher the mountain of garbage becomes.

Do we really want a mountain of garbage to ominously loom over us?