Imperfect Paradise: The dirty secret of trash: Illegal dumping in the Southern California desert

California Love

LAist Studios

Music

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 30 July 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Diapers, concrete and construction debris. The open secret about trash in Southern California is that some of the waste people assume is being properly handled is actually being disposed of on remote sites in the California high desert. The state agency in charge of waste, CalRecycle, has said the scale of illegal dumping has become an emergency. LAist science reporter Jacob Margolis investigated several illicit sites in the Antelope Valley. His investigation raises questions about illegal dumping practices, accountability and the toll it all takes on nearby residents.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for LAST comes from the Soraya, producing the West Coast premiere of Fiddler on the roof in Yiddish.
0:06.1	Enjoy a special concert production with English super titles featuring Tony nominee Stephen Skybell and award-winning Joel Gray.
0:13.0	Learn more at the Soraya.org.
0:16.1	Support for L.A.S. comes from Pasadena Playhouse presenting Eureka Day.
0:25.1	Jonathan Spector's Razor Sharp 2025 Tony Award-winning satire.
0:29.3	Eureka Day is on stage at Pasadena Playhouse beginning September 10th.
0:32.8	Tickets are on sale now at Pasadenaplayhouse.org.
0:43.5	Hey, this is in Perfect Paradise. I'm Antonia Serejido. There's this one chore all Americans carry out week after week. At my house, it's my husband who wheels out the three trash bins we have
0:51.9	every Friday morning. And then that garbage is sort of forgotten.
0:57.5	We never think about it again. Americans actually throw out almost five pounds of trash per person
1:03.8	every single day. Multiply that by the nation's population. And we're talking almost 1.6 billion pounds of trash. So the trash
1:13.8	does have to go somewhere. And a lot of us assume that garbage is disposed of responsibly,
1:20.2	like at a regional landfill. But what if huge piles of it filled with all kinds of waste,
1:26.7	from diapers to concrete, to even construction
1:29.9	debris.
1:31.2	All got mixed up and thrown away together, but not in a landfill.
1:39.9	That's exactly what's happening at three places in Anilope Valley.
1:43.8	Hundreds of thousands of tons of waste accumulating and forming massive,
1:49.0	often multiple feet high piles across the desert.
1:52.2	In some cases, not far from people's homes.
1:57.1	Things have gotten so bad with the level of illegal dumping there
2:00.5	that back in February, Calver Cycle, the state agency in charge of waste, issued an emergency regulation, stating the problem was degrading the environment, causing fires, and posing a risk to human health and safety.
	...

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