New Jersey: Why Did It Make The Grossest State List?
Is New Jersey the grossest state? No, thankfully. But New Jersey has been named one of the grossest states in a new list, according to Zippier. The career website determined which states were the grossest according to three factors: dirty air, trash (or the percentage of each state that is landfill), and spread of illness like the flu.
The site used the Air Filters Delivered to determine how states ranked for air quality. For the trash rating, they used the EPA’s (United States Environmental Protection Agency) data on the percentage of each state’s land that is taken up by landfills. Lastly, for “spread of illness” like the flu, they used the CDC’s (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) ranking for each state.
Researchers additionally added some cultural factors that they deemed gross such as “mayo recipes” and “Croc wearing.” They used Google’s search engine to determine which states were looking for those terms.
New Jersey came in No. 6 out of the 10 states they ranked. The Garden State came in at No. 6 due to its trash problem according to the site. “The tiny, densely populated state of New Jersey has a trash problem,” the site wrote. “In fact, 0.0421% of the state is landfill- More than any other state in the country. To put that into perspective, Alaska only has 0.0001% of its land mass dedicated to being filled with trash.”
New York rounded out the top 10 and Virginia was the top leader. Take a look at the full list here and the top 10 below:
The Grossest States
1. Virginia
2. South Carolina
3. North Carolina
4. Pennsylvania
5. Texas
6. New Jersey
7. Connecticut
8. Georgia
9. Delaware
10. New York