Five years ago, Aleksei G. Stelmakh thought he had built his little wooden house in one of the best neighborhoods around Moscow. Every day he could walk out onto his porch, breathe fresh air and scan the picturesque pine forest nearby.
Now, all he sees is a giant landfill, a heap of trash about 100 feet tall, so big that trucks on it look like insects. The fresh air is now suffused with methane and hydrogen sulfide gas that, besides stinking like rotten eggs, lifts his heart rate to alarming levels.
