It’s another day ending in ‘y,’ so California’s overlords are back to micromanaging your existence — now your trash is racist. A report from Industrious Labs, conducted for the California Air Resources Board, claims 70% of the state’s landfills that emit the most greenhouse gases lurk in minority-majority communities (where whites make up less than 50% of the population). Your fault, you garbage-tossing bigot. Their grand plan? Slash landfill methane emissions 52% by 2050, which means shuttering landfills and leaving you to rot in your own waste.
And so the racism lecture from our ruling class continues. You’ll remember during the summer of love and peaceful protests in 2020, not only were people pressured to post a black square on Instagram, bend the knee at a rally, and “say their names,” now they’re supposed to feel racial guilt for throwing their trash away. Similarly, “peaceful” protests have recently erupted in California again, and rather than restoring law and order, California despots are coming for your trash.
Take Kettleman Hills landfill, one of only two hazardous waste landfills in the state and the largest in the western U.S. It is a primary target for enviro-whackos who claim its toxic waste poisons locals and the planet — never mind its 50-year track record of safe operation, renewed permits, and community trust. Since the 1970s, it’s handled waste while keeping public health intact. But why let facts ruin a good narrative? Radical groups keep it under fire with lawsuits and complaints, despite exceeding state and federal environmental standards and being under frequent inspections from multiple agencies.
Or, worse, the Chiquita Canyon Landfill closure in Los Angeles earlier this year due to regulatory whiplash from L.A. County, state, and other regulators. The landfill, which handled 34% of L.A. trash, had implemented measures like enhanced gas well systems, odor surveillance, and leachate management to address any concerns. Still, it wasn’t good enough for regulators pressured by radical environmentalists.
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Officials admitted that shutting down Chiquita won’t affect a rare chemical reaction responsible for a strong odor, since “the reaction was taking place about 2,000 feet from the active parts of the landfill.” They also admitted that “closing it now would slow down the cleanup process.”
Laughably, the L.A. Times published an editorial last year that trashed — pun intended — Chiquita while cleaning up the chemical reaction. While Chiquita was spending massive resources protecting the environment and the community around the landfill, the Times said the landfill itself was “the legacy of a consumer culture that mindlessly generates trash with little regard to what happens to all that waste.” The Times neglected to mention that billions of taxpayer dollars spent on recycling and composting are often completely ineffective. We all remember the article from the 1990s, “Recycling is Garbage.”
Of course, once the landfill closed and county trash had to be hauled further, putting more pollution in the air per mile traveled, local lawmakers jumped to ensure “price-gouging” wasn’t happening, instead of solving the real problem of efficient trash disposal.
So what happens when landfills close? Is it better for anyone?
No surprise—the answer is no. When a landfill closes, trash must either be disposed of by incineration or transported even further away. However, incineration requires new infrastructure and has hazardous climate and health implications. The World Bank estimates that incineration and waste transportation cost $100-300 per ton, as opposed to $20-80 per ton for landfill disposal.
How will more expensive taxes, fewer jobs, and more pollution help communities of color, about which California pretends to care?
And on the flipside, what about the benefits of landfills? Places like Kettleman and Chiquita aren’t just trash heaps but economic engines. They generate millions in local taxes, funding schools, roads, and public services. Every major landfill supports hundreds of jobs — operators, haulers, and maintenance crews — pumping wages into local economies. Host communities often get direct payments, like the $1-2 million annually some California landfills pay to nearby towns. During the mitigation process, Chiquita provided nearly $24 million of direct payments to the local community. Closures kill these revenue streams, gut jobs, and leave municipalities scrambling to replace funds.
Let’s also not forget the “not in my backyard” hypocrisy of the whole issue. Moving trash to the neighborhood down the street also gives the impression that something I wouldn’t want in my own backyard is fine in someone else’s. Where is the climate justice in that?
California already has some of the strictest regulations in the country regarding hazardous waste, so it is shipped to states like Arizona and Utah instead for disposal. No wonder the state’s landfills charge some of the highest prices in the nation — more than twice as much as Utah’s landfills – while the waste disposal companies that are forced to drive out of state ironically often dump near Native American reservations.
The problem is that no one wants to live near a landfill, so the pressure to close them is immense. The smell can be annoying. However, much of the “science” regarding health problems is questionable. A study conducted by the UK government concluded that “living close to a well-managed landfill site does not pose a significant risk to human health.”
Anyway, you slice it, this is just another trashy example of garbage policy and landfill-worthy overregulation from environmentalists, led by the Golden Garbage State. Instead of chasing political clout, they could tackle actual problems. But that wouldn’t draw applause from the same folks who celebrate riots, illegal immigration, the high cost of living, and homelessness.
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