Artist’s Journal:

I often found myself thinking about what the landfill must be like at night. During the day, the place is a bizarre circus of activity and noise. Trucks are constantly running, birds are being chased off by hired hawks, the sounds of a daytime city are carried on the breeze. At night, it must be a very different place.

Inert. Peaceful. Quietly alive with nighttime creatures.

All government bodies are naturally risk averse, but the waste departments of the world must be doubly so. You see, the only way to know that your waste department is doing a good job is when no complaints come in. Think about that: imagine having one of the hardest, smelliest, coldest, hottest, and most arduous jobs in the city…and the only way to prove you’ve done your job well is to be wholly invisible. If the waste department is on your mind, it usually means that something’s gone wrong.

So I could understand the department’s trepidation when I told them that they needed to share more about their work and innovations. I understood why they thought this was a scary suggestion. Their best day is when no one calls them, so why would they do anything that might elicit attention?

Consequently, there are many impressive initiatives taken by the team that none of us really hear about. For example, I had no idea that our landfill siphons off gasses and uses them to partly power Barrhaven. The team doing this work is either so familiar with the project that they don’t realize it’s newsworthy; or they’re so used to keeping a low profile that they don’t want to try bragging about their work. Either way, it’s a shame. There are some very cool things happening at the landfill.

So while you sleep quietly tonight, think about that landfill, the power generated there, and the work put into keeping it invisible.