‘Poop train’ from New York stranded in southern US town

Southern American states have complained that they are being converted into dumping zones of all kinds.

A stinking trainload of human waste from New York City is stranded in a tiny Alabama town, spreading a stench like a giant backed-up toilet.

Train containers loaded with human waste in Parrish, Alabama. (AP)

The “poop train” is just the latest example of the South being used as a dumping ground for other states’ waste.

Parrish, Alabama, mayor Heather Hall says the smell is unbearable.

All kinds of waste have been dumped in Southern states in recent years, including toxic coal ash from power plants around the nation. In South Carolina, a plan to store radioactive nuclear waste in a rural area prompted complaints that the state was being turned into a nuclear dump.

Experts say Alabama’s inexpensive land, permissive zoning laws and a federal ban on dumping New Yorkers’ excrement in the ocean got the poop train chugging.