?? About dump site soil. Different???

[JOHUNT]

I've located a few old dump sites with glass, metal, etc. The soil seems to have some sort of ashes (flakes or chips) intermixed with it. My question is, are they actually ashes (maybe to keep odors down) or is it something else? Thanks!

 

[jeff of pa]

dump sits are hard to say.

Could be Coal ashes

 

[NOLA_Ken]

could be anything, fireplace ashes, maybe they burned trash, who knows? A lot of the dumps I dug with my grandfather years ago seemed to be covered in ashes and cinders, plus organic material that smelled funky. we dug one that had been buried under 6 feet of sawdust from a lumber mill, over 70 years it rotted down to a layer a couple feet thick and smelled like an old moldy basement.

 

[bootyhoundpa]

ashes from wood and coal which were used as a heating source would get dumped along with all the other trash...