FYI: The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has shut down a landfill that takes 10 percent of New York City’s garbage every year, citing dozens of violations, mostly relating to odor. The landfill, located outside of Scranton, is one of a network of out-of-state landfills to which the city trucks or trains its household garbage. Environmental policy watchers have complained that the practice leaves the city dependent upon those states’ willingness to accept our waste. But, as Keith Kloor’s investigation of the Pennsylvania landfills for City Limits explains, another concern lies in the conditions these landfills create in the suburban neighborhoods where they are often located. Local residents have fought the Scranton-area landfill’s expansion for years, and the Pennsylvania DEP cited those residents’ complaints in shutting down the site indefinitely. [4/16/03]