Made in York, Pa.

He poured two 2¹ / _2-gallon plastic bags filled with cream and sugar into his Emery Thompson ice cream machine, which looked like a laundromat dryer. Then he dumped in six ounces of coffee and one ounce of vanilla extract. For 15 minutes, the machine whirred and roared. Then there was silence. Lebouitz pulled a lever, and the ice cream oozed out. “You’re going to die,” he said after trying a spoonful. “Ice cream always makes you happy.”

Oh, yes, I was happy.

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(Nancy Trejos/ The Washington Post ) - Brent Lebouitz makes a point of using real vanilla extract at Sweet Willows Creamery.

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• Made in York, Pa.
• Details: If you go to York, Pa.

My tour of the Modern Landfill and Recycling Center, a solid-waste management facility owned by Republic Services, didn’t exactly make me happy, but I learned a lot from Art Sullivan, who’s in charge of the water management plant.

We started outside, staring at the hill where up to 5,000 tons of municipal, residential, construction and demolition waste from York, Philadelphia, Washington and even New York are dumped each day. The landfill, in operation since the 1940s, is projected to reach capacity in 10 years, when it will be capped and covered with dirt and grass, Art said.

Next, Sullivan drove us over the 165 acres of landfill, much of it covered in dirt, to the summit in his Jeep. Along the way, we spotted hawks and other birds (there was once a bald eagle sighting). The ride was bumpy, but from the top, we could see all of York and miles into the distance.

For about an hour, Sullivan led me from one plant to another. I couldn’t keep track of what all the machines did. In the water treatment facility, which handles 7 million gallons a month, I got a little dizzy crossing a catwalk over enormous water-filled vats.

But it was another body of water that most fascinated me: a stream that the company had diverted from the landfill to a grassy area across the road, meticulously preserving the environment and moving all the creatures that lived in the water, including turtles, tadpoles and a snake.

Back at the landfill, I decided that I’d pretty much had my, um, fill of garbage. It made me happy to head back to my hotel room, where an Apples n’ Cinnamon bar of soap awaited me.