Landfilling 101 (Ew. Gross..)

There is nothing quite like off-roading in a bus. I highly recommend it. Today we traveled to Ecoserdiana Landfill, to the north of Cagliari. The gates were nestled between two hillsides, rising well above the road. Shrubs and wildflowers and dried grass covered them, and they were framed by the surrounding countryside.

The two female engineers get on the bus, and immediately point out that the two hills are closed landfills, one from 2000 and the other from 2012. The first was opened in 1980 as one of the first sanitary landfills in the area. Originally it was not fitted with pipes to collect the methane gas produced by the organic components of the municipal solid waste, so in the 1990s it was retrofitted with the necessary requirement to collect the biogas.

This landfill is currently equipped to handle industrial waste, some types of hazardous waste, and bottom ash from waste to energy incinerators. Most landfills in Sardinia are no longer allowed to accept municipal solid waste. Because of this, Ecoserdiana faces a challenge in their future. Without organic waste, new landfills will not produce near enough biogas to keep their biogas combustion to energy plants running. As a result, Ecoserdiana has begun research into implementing an anaerobic digestion plant on site, and has already installed a small solar farm.

 

The current functioning landfill takes up a relatively vast area. Because of the composition of the waste the landfill accepts, the waste was almost entirely soot, ash, and chunks of construction waste. Surprisingly not much of a smell. This particular landfill is built over an old MSW landfill, and as such the top vents have to be built up with the rising waste. They are closed now, so only the biogas from the bottom vents makes it to the energy plant.

Sometimes this dialogue surprises me. This subject is not my forte; in fact it is so far our of my wheelhouse sometimes I feel as if I am swinging at air. However, every once in a while, if I squint, or look down, I find something you don't get to see everyday: hope.

Following the River, Wandering to the Sea

The bus rocked me out of another nap, the lurch sent me flying into the window pane, and I knocked my head into the glass. 

It's another overcasted day, and the cumulus clouds (nuvole, in Italian, as I've been told) drag race across the sky. The bus tilts again as we round another corner on a switchback, the railing disappears, and suddenly I'm hanging over a gorge: suspended over half a mountainside. That's one heck of a wakeup call. I catch snatches of a stream: white and furious at some instances, others a small moment of tranquility before the engine shifts and we lumber around the bend. The mountain path followed the little river for over a half hour, and I sat with my eyes glued to the window, following it like a starving paparazzi, waiting for the perfect snapshot. 

I am fascinated by water. It's ebbs, eddies, waves, and ripples stun and awe me. I suck it dry from my camelback, from the carafes and decanters at the restaurants, even the garden hose. Man craves water like a lover. We write songs to praise her. We dance to entice her to fall upon us. We build temples to her. We came upon a Roman temple, built to the god Antas. It is believed that there was once a spring that was believed to heal and cleanse its worshipers. In typical Roman (human) style, they built the hulking mass in the stolen style of the Greeks, and directly on top of a Nuragic shrine. For thousands of years, how many people prayed and begged for a miracle, for guidance? How many stood where I dumbly stood - yawning from my afternoon nap - with a motive and a purpose? How can I even begin to comprehend their humanity, when their lives we so unlike my own? 

The human body is comprised of 60% water. I guess that’s something in common, but I drink so little you can just subtract 15% or so.

The water moves mountains. It cuts away at the hills and shapes ridges and valleys. Every crevice of the mountains has its own river bed, now dry from the early summer heat. How old the stone is here? At Porto Flavia the shale practically crumbled to my touch, like compressed wood or shards of sand. Imagine mining through that. You’d be 15 kinds of dead under the mountain, trapped under the tons of collapsed rock. Luckily the port is carved of clay and limestone. Unluckily for the creators of the port, hydraulic mining wasn’t invented until the 1850s during the California gold rush. Yay chisels and mallets.

An ant moves 50 times its own weight all by itself; the current world record for a dead lift is 1155 lbs, only 4 times that particular human weight. I think of the time it took to create this port, to quarry in to the mountains in search of silver, gold, zinc, and iron. Humanity has moved mountains, in both the good sense and the bad. The abandon town on Ingurtosu sits crumbling atop the mountain, despite an inhabitance of over a thousand a mere 40 years ago. How odd is it to think our stones may still stand, even when we move on and others replace us. I can imagine it now: a valley oak, gnarled and blue-gray, growing skyward in my living room: its brown autumn leaves covering the stained oak floorboards, its roots twisted into our rotting plumbing. I wonder, if you turned down the hall and stumbled over the foliage into my old bedroom, if my stuffed bunny Oswald would still be sitting on my bed.

Maybe the force of the blow to my head was enough, or perhaps the engine's rumbling din knocked enough to my nerves cells senseless, and I'm still dreaming. It's hard to believe that everything, between the shallow, turbulent stream to the cavernous boreholes drilled into stone so old it crumbles to touch, exists. 

In a different time, I used to watch Ted Talks. I would sit for hours on the edge of my top bunk in my sketch-covered room, and scarf down information like a starving wolf descending on the kill. I would watch a video, then research the topic until I completely understood its nuances and corners: its nooks and crannies.

High school ended, a flawless past summer, and I moved to Boston. I would still watch the talks, but I never Seemed to have the time to fully research and explore the videos. One of the videos I watched in the first months at Northeastern was an eight minute TedCity talk by Robin Nagle. It was entitled What I Discovered in New York City Trash . It fascinated me. I never considered the fate of what I threw away, until I began this dialogue.

Today we visited three waste management plants to the west of Cagliari, near Pula. The first was a paper recycling plant. There we learned how different types of waste paper were sorted, shredded, cleaned, mixed, and then formed into new paper for use. Only about 5% is lost in each recycle process. Not too bad, right? That especially given a single fiber of paper can be recycled up to eight times before the proteins in the fibers denature with age and it begins to decompose.

As walked into the open warehouse, and stared up at the skyscrapers of stacked and packed cardboard and paper, I halted with a jolt. The plant had office and notebook paper strewn about over the concrete; It seemed it to climb the walls in the wind. I looked down past my converse covered toes and my eyes landed on a small piece of notebook paper. In neat, feminine navy ink, her notes stood out in a personal way That I had not expected from such an industrialized location. Robin Nadle's voice echoed in my head, and the intimacy stuck me by surprise. I knew the ink navy woman's birth date. I knew her address. I could read her thoughts and wishes. Here they recycled possessions: thoughts, birthday cards, songs written and accidentally discarded. Here these physical representations of ourselves came to be made ​​new, made ​​clean, like some sanitation baptism in the industrial zone outside Cagliari.

Between the personal existed amounts of vast impersonal. Shredded cereal boxes, fruit containers, newspapers, flyers and glossy colored littered the ground. The waste surprised me. The extent of the waste in our packaging surprised me. Why must we place in cereal boxes, When the physical food resides in a food-grade, sealed plastic bag? Advertising? Shipping? Where did the practice start?

I've become hypersensitive to the composition of what surrounds me. Who designed the composting plant, the waste to energy incineration plant? What will become of them when their purpose is served? The compost was shocking, and I see now the industrialized composting faces challenges in the United States. In Sardinia, it cost 120 euro to process one ton of compost, but it is only sold for 2 Euros per ton. The government provides the necessary and capital resources, the tax breaks and financial whatnot. When I think of the United States, I wonder how we could possibly pitch this to a nation where the environment is still on the back burner. Do we educate? Where do we start? 

Thoughts From Hours Past

It's been a while. It's been a few days, actually. I keep waiting to round a corner, to be rocked back by the force of the blow. So much for the bear who went over the mountain; I feel more like the guppies who swam across the pond. And I mean by pond ocean.

I remember the last time. On a dreary, gray morning in October of 2013, an idealistic girl freezing in California skin in the wind at the very edge of Long Warf. She Looked out over the harbor, shivering in her heaviest coat California. She turned on her heels, and the weight slammed into her: a freight train to the chest. A city, suddenly hers, bathed in soft light and dawn rising up to the autumn skies. Pale yellows and pinks peaked past the sullen blue shadows in the cracks between the skyline. Suddenly, instantly, the world was hers. In a single moment, she found home: stuffed between the heroic history and throbbing pulse of the T, pressed against the walls of the I-93 tunnel, in the spaces between the notes sung in the T stations.

It took a month for Boston, and I have 25 days for Cagliari.

Maybe I'm looking too hard. Maybe I Have not been looking. I'm afraid, truly afraid That I will not find a home here. I'm afraid I'll miss something. In the precious first days, it's critical to meet and befriend your companions, to find people to eat dinner with, to explore in the safety of packs. When is it okay to venture out alone? To leave the well-lit square, with its cafes and named American men selling phone cases, and take a left turn down a back alley and find somewhere new? I feel so American, so different, like an elephant in a circus Midwest: ogled at by the crowds. I should try harder to pick up English, but I hide behind the safety of my classmates - now friends.

You see, I'm starting to loathe trips to La Piazza Yenne. They know us, they Recognize our flip-flops and too short skirts and loud, guttural voices. It's getting claustrophobic in here. Get me out. North to the safety of the dorm, south to the Mediterranean port and the cruise ships: that leaves the east and west. Time to hang the left or to the right peak. Time to find the Moment When Cagliari's heartbeat and breath shallow syncs with my pants, and I find home.

Be brave. 

A Smallish Recount of My First Two Days in Italy

“This could be the very moment I feel that I’m alive: all these places feel like home.”

Chocolate – Snow Patrol

We’re landing! We just turned now, and I can see the countryside. Oh my goodness it looks like home. Somehow, I’m not afraid anymore. I feel free, alive even: chalk-full of curiosity and read to explore.

-Four Hours Later-

There are six planes in front of us to take off (we’re moving so less now). I haven’t quite been culture shocked, but I guess airports aren’t exactly the best places to dive into a culture. Did you see the Victoria’s Secret in terminal 1? Who wants to try on bras after you’ve had an eight hour red eye and feel gross and grubby? Ew!

The Italy stamp in my passport is a square. A square. It says “Fiumicino” and that’s it. Lame.

-Pause for Takeoff-

Well, we’re airborne and already over the water! All of Italy looks like home to me, and I was a fool to forget that.

 -May 15, 2015 3:30 pm-

The café down the street is perfect. With miss-matching china and almost hipster-esque wall hangings, it stands as a complete mockery of a British café and tea shop. I have great plans for my 5 euro stipend! Their cappuccino is excellent, and there is a fine selection of cupcakes, croissants, and fruit. Maybe I could spend some of my money on a focaccia for lunch during class days. We walked up the hill, almost San Franciscan in pitch, and were stunned by the amazing views. Next we went to University of Cagliari, and if you ever want to put 16 jet-lagged college kids to sleep, place them in a room at 3:00 pm, turn off the air conditioning, and lecture at them. That said, I enjoyed the competition between the other students, and had fun learning Italian phrases from the University of 

Cagliari and University of Padua students.

After class we had a few hours to relax before dinner at a restaurant at the bottom of the hill. Dinner was served in four courses: antipasta, pasta, main, and the coffee. Octopus potato salad, breaded and fried squid, chunks of swordfish, and zesty shrimp were served with clam pasta and fresh vegetables. It was delightful. I tried everything, and enjoyed hearing about the experiences of my fellow classmates. Tomorrow, we will have the morning off and then visit the home of Aldo Muntoni, a professor form UniPA. We will enjoy the beach and share a meal with the students from the University of Padua, I can't wait!

Pre-Impressions, General Lamentations, and I'M GOING TO ITALY.

Two days. Two days until another 4,034 miles separates me from my California hills. It is a humid, blustery Monday here in Connecticut, but I find myself longing for the dry heat of the Central Valley or the misting fog of the coastal range.

High up in the hills of California

Listen to me, homesick already and I haven’t even left yet. That’s what you get when you shove 2,628 miles between home and college: a constant state of homelessness and a hatred of airports.

At least I don’t have to worry much about culture shock. I am a pro at dealing with that curve ball. Coming from a crazy, kinda-sorta-but-not-really Americanized Italian family, I have my fair share of preconceived notions regarding Italians. However, my knowledge of the culture is strictly limited to Sicily and the mainland, specifically the region of Puglia. I am used to the welcoming nature of the Italians, and I recognize the importance of respect and family in their culture. These are elements which I believe will be common in Cagliari, and I look forward to discovering the differences between Sardinian and mainland Italian culture.

There, I said it. The problem now is doing it. Of course I am afraid. Of course I am nervous. Of course my parents call once a day reminding me to pack this or buy that.

The fear is the best part.

It comes down to vision. I find the most amazing sights when I wander, lost in Boston’s Financial District or through the valley oak and waist-high grass of my Northern California home. You have to be open, you have to wander with your eyes peeled for something, anything, and everything. I do not seek adventure, I seek the moments when realization dawns and I understand something I never thought existed. There is a certain amount of gumption to it, almost like a knack for peaking around corners and being ready for anything. The curiosity stays with me, my constant companion and closest confidant. I held its hand and let it guide me through 250-year-old graveyards nestled between condominiums in my first year in Boston, and now I will let it carry throughout Sardinia.

There is so much more to a place than the landmarks. I do not want to conjure the image of the Eiffel Tower when I imagine Paris, nor do I want to visualize The Gateway of India when I picture Mumbai. In a month, when I envision my time in Cagliari, I want to see its back alleys and markets, its beaches and churches. Culture is in the people and how they interact with their surroundings, and I have every intention of jumping in to the current of their culture and letting it carry me off.

I want to learn of Sardinia’s past, its present, and where it sees itself in the future. I want to better understand the nuances and policy regarding waste management and resource recovery: specifically how it applies to Sardinia. Finally, I want to fully immerse myself in a people unknown to me, and leave with a more complete understanding of their priorities, history, and customs.