Fresh Kills Landfill

The Fresh Kills Landfill was a landfill covering 2,200 acres (890 ha) in the New York City borough of Staten Island in the United States. The name comes from the landfill's location along the banks of the Fresh Kills estuary in western Staten Island.

The landfill was opened in 1948 as a temporary landfill but became New York City's principal landfill in the second half of the 20th century. It was once the largest landfill, as well as human-made structure, in the world. In October 2008, reclamation of the site began on a multi-phase, 30-year site development for reuse as Freshkills Park.

The "land-fill method" of disposing of unburnable waste was developed in 1939 in the United Kingdom, but its first use in the United States was at the Fresh Kills, in what came to be known as a "landfill", where it was introduced by William Carey, New York City's Sanitation Commissioner. The landfill was structured like a layer cake, with a layer of garbage covered by a layer of ash – the remains of burnable trash from the city's incinerators – another layer of garbage, and then a layer of dirt to contain the smell. At the end of the landfill's usable life, new real estate would be created. The advantages appeared to outweigh any known drawbacks, so the city's sanitary code was revised to allow the landfill, specifying how deep the layers of garbage and dirt should or could be. The plan for Fresh Kills was initially opposed by Cornelius Hall when he was the city's public works commissioner, but when he became the Borough President of Staten Island, he backed the plan, saying:

I am firmly convinced that a limited landfill project can be undertaken at Fresh Kills, a project that would prove of great value to the island through the reclamation of valuable land from now worthless marshland.

Hall intended the landfill to be part of a proposed belt highway along Staten Island's west shore, a plan endorsed by New York's "master builder" Robert Moses, who wanted the area, which was opposite the heavy industry of New Jersey across the Arthur Kill, developed as the borough's industrial base. Moses saw the project as key to the development of the island. Moses saw the possibility of more parkland, highways, industry, and possibly even an airport.

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