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2 Emailed from: Anthony D. So, MD, MPA Professor of the Practice of Public Policy and Global Health Director, Program on Global Health and Technology Access Sanford School of Public Policy Duke University Rubenstein Hall, Room 204 302 Towerview Drive, Box 90312 Durham, North Carolina 27708 Tel: 919-613-9258 E-mail: anthony.so@duke.edu Designing for the Future of the Orange County Landfill With the anticipated closure of the Orange County landfill in a year, one wonders whether there might be creative opportunities to make a positive difference for the local community that has long borne this responsibility for the County. Making this a point of pride rather than a point source of pollution is a transformation worthy of municipal and county investment. This may require some reconnaissance, perhaps with the support of local universities (and this area is fortunate to have exceptional resources in this regard) and the EPA’s Landfill Methane Outreach Program (http://www.epa.gov/lmop/basic-info/index.html#a03), but the process has the potential to engage a broad swath of this community, from art centers to energy and environment programs, and build a stronger future for our community. The inspiration for next steps may come from as far as Paraguay or as close as the Black Mountains of western North Carolina. We are fortunate that our region has a wealth of educational, artistic and cultural resources that might be mobilized to forge a vision forward (see starter listing in Appendix A). And there may be potentially both financial and non-financial returns from the management of the closure of the Orange County landfill. It would be appropriate that some part of these returns be channeled back to the surrounding community. Perhaps the stories of cutting edge efforts elsewhere might inspire next steps here. While projects like the ZeroLandfill West Tennessee Project focus on diverting and upcycling materials (http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2012/apr/17/the-upside-of-upcycling), the Financial Times discussed projects that treat waste as unexploited resources and as sources for local revenue generation, ranging from photovoltaic landfill covers that can turn sites into solar power generators to the creation of natural-looking landscapes (http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/8cfd120a-2673-11e1-91cd-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1xPAlabal). In case such stories have not already come to the attention of the Solid Waste Advisory Committee here, these might offer a useful sampling of excerpted descriptions of such projects: EnergyXchange in Yancey and Mitchell Counties, North Carolina. When the landfill that served the residents of the two counties was closed in 1994, extensive research and discussion took place to find a use for the potential energy. Local leaders created and customized appropriate applications and facilities for the reuse of the landfill gases. The two-county area is home to some of America’s most creative artists and beautiful native plants. The EnergyXchange site is an ideal location to develop craft incubator studios to support developing artists and greenhouses