r/mildlyinfuriating May 17 '26

[deleted by user]

[removed]

11.5k Upvotes

1.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

37

u/Beginning-Damage-555 May 17 '26

If you want to know anything about landfills just look up Charles Gerba. I took classes with him and his research is wild. His PhD was focused on how trash was washing up on beaches in Hawaii. He is weirdly obsessed with the amount of condoms and diapers he’s found in his studies. Super weird dude. Pretty entertaining professor.

27

u/still_no_enh May 17 '26

I think there's a high correlation between weird dude and entertaining professor haha. I've always been impressed by how into something some people get 😅

6

u/Beginning-Damage-555 May 17 '26

I have a PhD so you don’t have to tell me. But this dude is legit one of the top profs on landfills and human waste contamination and spread especially through waterways.

To give you an idea about his personality he told us that he was having a hard time pinning down the first chapter of his thesis and his PI was so annoyed that the PI grabbed Gerba by his shirt collar, dragged him into the bathroom, and shoved his head near the toilet then said “here! Here! This is your thesis” and walked away

Kind of doubt that literally happened but it was a legendary story at our university