new landfills could be reduced if Americans were diligent about recycling, but the average American does not believe that our natural resources are finite. Sure, people affiliated with colleges and universities have taken concrete efforts to recycle. Unfortunately, much consciousness-raising needs to be done before middle America hops on the recycling bandwagon. Therefore, at this point, it appears that America needs more sanitary landfills. So the question is, where do these landfills go?
This raises the subtopic of whether there exist guidelines for the siting of landfills. A landfill can have a negative environment impact on a community. After all, the term "sanitary landfill" is just a euphemism for "garbage dump." And no one wants a garbage dump in their back yard. A common acronym for this mindset is NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard). This mindset surfaces any time a government agency wants to locate a sanitary landfill near a middle-class or upper middle-class neighborhood. A related subtopic is whether or not residents have reason for concern if a sanitary landfill is located near their neighborhood. I remember driving by a large expanse of hilly, beautifully landscaped land near my father's place of employment. When I asked my father what the site was used for, I was surprised to learn that it was a landfill. Another time, when I helped my father haul away my mother's spring cleaning, we went to the county dump, which was on the outskirts of town. From the roadway, you couldn't tell it was a dump at all. Since urban planners go through considerable efforts to conceal the presence of sanitary landfills, there must be some other objection that residents have to landfills, unrelated to aesthetics. Thus a
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