Give me your tired, your Glad Bags, Your Huggies yearning for rest. The wretched refuse of your teeming cul-de-sacs. Send these, the no-longer-useful objects, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

(Apologies to poet Emma Lazarus.)

Yes, it’s true, Virginia is one of the nation’s top waste importers in the country. Last year, it took in five million tons of garbage from places such as Maryland, New York, North Carolina, New Jersey and Washington, D.C.

Virginia ranks No. 2 as the nation’s leading trash importer next to No. 1, Pennsylvania. The trash goes into large landfills operated by such national firms as Waste Management.

About 15 years ago, when Jim Gilmore was governor, there was a controversy when Waste Management and Virginia were about to ink a new pact expanding the Mother as Presidents as a major trash dump.

There was a public outcry, but it seems have to have settled down. Much of the trash comes in via rail. You tell because the cars carry large metal boxes dark green in color, not to be mistaken with the orange ones from Tropicana’s juice train.