Do you want to get out?

Is this us?

Yeah, this is us.

Okay.

This is Radio Lab.

I'm Jad Abumrod.

Since our program today deals with stumbling upon the past in unlikely places,

we thought we'd begin this part of the show.

Well, not at a place we normally visit.

So, I feel like we're standing on the top of a mountain, but how high up are we?

Right here, I believe we're about 180.

This, by the way, is Chief Dennis Diggins.

I'm an assistant chief in the New York City Department of Sanitation.

And when he says 180, he means feet. About 180 feet high. Well, that's about 18 stories. Correct. 18 stories up into the Staten Island sky. That's where we're standing. Where we're standing. A hill. Basically like a big dirt hill. And in a glance, you'd never know that this hill was made from anything other than dirt.

What did this used to be? Unless, of course, you dug about a few feet down. This is all garbage

underneath us. Up until March of 2001, we were taking in all of New York City's garbage.

All the boroughs were coming here. All the boroughs were coming here. So we were probably

taking in on average 11,000 tons a day.

11,000 tons a day.

That's, what does 11,000 tons look like?

That's a lot of garbage.

Fresh kills used to be the biggest dump on the planet, but that's all in the past.

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