Landfill Seeding party
by Brenna Gelormine
If you have been following Sustainability Matters for any amount of time, I’m sure you’ve heard of the Making Trash Bloom project. I had the honor of attending the Shenandoah County Landfill seeding party on April 21. This was a wonderful experience where I got to meet fellow supporters of the project and learn more about what it means to “Make Trash Bloom”.
For the past couple of years, Sustainability Matters has been working with Virginia landfills to develop a program in which sealed trash cells are topped with mixtures of clay, soil, and native wildflower seed mixes instead of invasive grasses. The wildflower seed mixes include native species with high resilience, adaptability and long roots to hold the soil in place. Using wildflowers instead of invasive grasses encourages native pollinators to inhabit the ecosystem. The hope is that the hydroseeding (seed mixtures were sprayed with water across the steep trash cell) will result in a beautiful wildflower/pollinator meadow and brighten the landscape of the landfill, de-stigmatizing the idea of landfills and educating the public about how to regain land lost from the exponentially increasing amount of trash produced every day.
As a member of the youngest generation, I have grown up learning about the horrors of climate change, and witnessed the effects firsthand. This initiative gives me hope for how waste management facilities may function in the future, but I know there is still so much more that can be done to preserve our ecosystems. I am so grateful to have witnessed the next steps in this monumental project.
