Cleanup begins after wind blows landfill trash up to a mile away

MENOMONEE FALLS (WITI) -- Crews worked to clean up countless pieces of garbage on Saturday, February 22nd after strong winds on Friday blew some trash up to a mile away from a Menomonee Falls landfill.

Workers from Waste Management attempted to move as much garbage as possible back to the dump site.

"Everybody can't imagine how bad this is until you actually get up here and take a look at it and when you see it in real life it's like, man, this is going to be a major effort," said Tom Leunig.

Residents near the area stopped by to see the mess, littering roads and fences, firsthand.

"This is totally amazing," said Leunig. "I'm glad they're cleaning it up. I think they've got to do something quickly before it blows all over the place."

Seeing the amount of plastic bags mixed up in the blown trash, many are using the incident as a reminder to recycle.

"It's probably a good idea for people to try to recycle these, at the grocery store or wherever they get them, and not put them in the landfills. Because you see this, this is going to be here for a long time, I think," Leunig said. "No matter how good of a clean up they do, you're going to see this for quite a while."

A spokesman for Waste Management says the company started making plans to deal with the blowing debris from the landfill as soon as strong winds were in the forecast. They say, however, there isn't much crews can do when winds become as strong as they were on Friday.

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