Landfills Essay Research Paper Landfillsby Brandon NollLandfills

Landfills Essay, Research Paper

Landfills

by Brandon Noll

Landfills are places where all our trash goes when we no longer need it. Each

person in the United States makes an average 4.5 pounds of garbage per year. And

every year the United States as a whole produces 4,036,300,000 metric tons of solid

waste each year. All of this waste does not just disappear, 80 percent ends up in

landfills. In the following report I am going to tell you about the different types of

landfills there are, the problems that have come up with the building of landfills, and

what can be done and is being done to reduce the amount of waste going into landfills.

First of all, “What are the different types of landfills.” Well, there are two

different types of landfills; the first type is the old type of landfill which are often called

open dumps where trash and other waste were thrown, often times in a ditch or just

placed in a pile. These open dumps are a poor method of waste disposal because they

cause numerous environmental problems. For example, they can ruin an area’s

appearance and provide a home and breeding ground for animals that spread disease. In

addition, rain water drains through refuse and can carry harmful substances to nearby

streams and to water that is used for drinking. Unregulated dumps where waste is burned

in the open can cause smoke and foul-smelling air. Burning in open dumps has been

prohibited in the United States. The other type of landfill is most often called a sanitary

landfill. Properly operated sanitary landfills cause little damage to the environment. The

waste is firmly packed by heavy tractors and other machinery, and covered with earth each

day. The cover of earth prevents insects and other animals from getting into the refuse.

In time, sanitary landfill sites become filled up.

Many communities then cover the site with earth a final time and use the area for

recreational purposes. Concern for the environment has led to the establishment of many

strict laws and ordinances to control land disposal sites. A secure sanitary landfill is lined

with materials like plastic or clay that prevents water from carrying leachates, or

dissolved substances from the refuse into underground water supplies. Pipes collect the

water for transfer to a treatment plant that removes the leachates in the groundwater.

Pipes sunk into the landfill allow gases to escape or be collected for fuel. Another variation

of the landfill concept greatly increases the disposal capacity of certain cites and provides

recreational slopes in otherwise flat terrain. In this variation, wastes are compacted in

layers to create a landscaped hill 100 feet (30 meters) or more in height. Such hills,

sometimes nicknamed Mount Trashmore, have been built in Dupage County and

Evanston, Illinois; Virginia Beach, Virginia; Frankfurt, Germany; and Stockholm, Sweden.

Not all potential landfill sites are suitable for conversion into hills, but many are. In regions

where natural hills are scarce, a carefully built, covered, and landscaped hill of waste can

solve a waste-disposal problem and at the same time actually enhance the environment.

Another site sometimes used for waste disposal, and under consideration for more

extensive use is the ocean floor. A major deterrent to wider use of the ocean floor is the

long term threat of contamination of the deep-sea environment by materials that injure

marine life.

What are the problems in landfills today. Operators of landfills expect the refuse

in them to decay. However, environmental experts have found that many materials are

called biodegradable, because they decompose when tightly packed in a landfill. The

decomposition of cellulose in a landfill is accompanied by a very slow formation of

methane gas, which seeps out into the atmosphere. When methane gas forms by natural

decay swamps it is called swamp, and or marsh gas.

Normally, much more methane is released into the air by natural decay of trees and other

vegetation than by the decay of waste in landfills. In a rare misapplication of landfilling

too close to a building, the methane gas may seep into and accumulate inside the building

and cause an explosion.

A problem of landfilling in metropolitan areas is that as the need for waste disposal

grows, the number of suitable sites diminishes. This problem is enormously complicated

when the city has completely surrounded by residential suburbs that are hostile to all

forms of waste processing in their areas, especially the processing of waste from a

neighboring community. The well-founded hostility to the formerly widespread practice

of open dumping has, however, prejudiced many taxpayers against any form of landfilling

regardless of the demonstrated success of the sanitary landfill method.

Incineration is one process that reduces the amount of waste that is

contained in landfills. Incineration is the

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