Fresh Kills Landfill
104
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42
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35
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Search complete. 104 mentions across 42 episodes found for "Fresh Kills Landfill".
Sep 15, 2026
SeanHOST
We can do a part two, Daniel.
SeanHOST
When you talk about rituals, when you talk about hiding what you've done right in the wide open, but really rituals that are anything but to honor the dead and the fallen, What do you make of the fact that all of the iron from the collapsed towers was taken to a landfill right across the bridge called Fresh Kills Landfill? You can't make it up, folks.
Daniel FournierGUEST
Yeah.
Daniel FournierGUEST
I mean, also what you're showing on screen here is something that like almost nobody has reported on.
SeanHOST
When you talk about rituals, when you talk about hiding what you've done right in the wide open, but really rituals that are anything but to honor the dead and the fallen...
SeanHOST
What do you make of the fact that all of the iron from the collapsed towers was taken to a landfill right across the bridge called Fresh Kills Landfill? You can't make it up, folks.
Daniel FournierGUEST
Yeah, I mean, also what you're showing on screen here is something that like, almost nobody has reported on.
Daniel FournierGUEST
Don't show the next image first.
Michael BrownHOST
Every single material.
Michael BrownHOST
Now, that somewhere on Staten Island is a place called Fresh Kills.
Michael BrownHOST
It's on the western shore of Staten Island.
Michael BrownHOST
And I know history has a dark sense of humor because Fresh Kills was, until six months earlier, the largest landfill on the face of the planet.
Michael BrownHOST
50 years of New York City's garbage.
Michael BrownHOST
The city had finally closed it in March of 2001 forever by law.
Michael BrownHOST
The retirement of Fresh Kills as a landfill lasted 173 days.
Michael BrownHOST
On the very first night of September 11, the first trucks rolled through its gates carrying the World Trade Center, and the world's largest dump, the world's largest landfill came out of retirement to do the most delicate work any piece of ground has ever, ever been asked to do.
Owen BenjaminHOST
And, uh, I think because when you look at the total mass of the World Trade Center, it wasn't rubble, it was gone.
Owen BenjaminHOST
And then the scraps that were there went to literally, literally it was called, um, Fresh Kills Landfill.
Owen BenjaminHOST
Fresh Kills.
Owen BenjaminHOST
It was called Fresh Kills, look it up, on Staten Island.
Lynsey BaerGUEST
I think, um, it definitely was quick thinking, um, on the part of the state to recognize that there was going to be a fair amount of debris from this, and what was gonna need to be done to handle it.
Lynsey BaerGUEST
Um, so the Fresh Kills Landfill w- um, located in Staten Island was the largest landfill at the time, and it had previously closed just earlier in the year.
Lynsey BaerGUEST
Knowing that there was gonna be so much trash that was going to be developed from this cleanup effort, there was a crisis of, "What are we gonna do? There's no place we can take it." So they had to kind of do some quick thinking, quick acting, and they quickly opened up the Fresh Kills Landfill after it had already been closed for several months.
Lynsey BaerGUEST
They opened it back up in September of, of '11.
Lynsey BaerGUEST
Um, so not only was it, you know, a place to bring all the trash and debris, but it also became very important for all the sorting and forensic operations, um, was all done at that location as well.
Stephanie RuhleGUEST
And I'm also just thinking about the workers, not just in the, in the, in those days, but in the year following.
Stephanie RuhleGUEST
Last night I interviewed the head of the Fresh Kills Landfill, who, who...
Stephanie RuhleGUEST
That is where everything was sent.
Stephanie RuhleGUEST
The millions of tons of debris.
speaker_15SOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
I had to tour a lot of the stuff because I was a FEMA employee.
speaker_15SOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
We went up to Fresh Kills.
speaker_15SOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
They found a stewardess's shirt, a blouse when we were up there when they were going through the rubble.
speaker_15SOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
There was flags flying in all of the tents.
Corinne FisherHOST
An audit from November 2001 prepared by a private firm and submitted to the federal EPA based on data collected by New York City and state agencies showed other troubling findings.
Corinne FisherHOST
That audit demonstrated that air concentration of the carcinogen benzene was still spiking near the tower's footprint and that the concentration of asbestos in the air at the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island had increased after the attacks.
Corinne FisherHOST
The uncertainty about the air quality in residential and commercial buildings in lower Manhattan was already raising concern among public officials like Representative Gerald Nadler.
Corinne FisherHOST
That's Jerry Nadler and a Manhattan Democrat whose district included ground zero at the time.
Owen BenjaminHOST
Byron Pitts.
Owen BenjaminHOST
Do you know where all the metal went to? It went to Fresh Kills Landfill.
Owen BenjaminHOST
And you know where it went after? Wuhan, China, to create idols out of it.
Owen BenjaminHOST
Facts.
Leslie EtheridgeGUEST
And then after the incident, and then you go to recovery, and then you go to cleanup.
Leslie EtheridgeGUEST
So after they went to clean up the area, then what they did was take all the remnants from the 9-11 and take it to the landfill, Staten Island Landfill.
Leslie EtheridgeGUEST
So then that was another assignment, how you had to go there and kind of still searching to see if you can get anything to identify a person, whether it's a body part, ID, a piece of jewelry, you know, and some of us had tougher times than others dealing with it mentally.
Leslie EtheridgeGUEST
But it stays with you.
32 more episodes mention Fresh Kills Landfill.
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