The truck carefully drives to a specific area of the landfill and dumps or "tips" its load. Then it leaves and drives to another neighborhood to repeat the process. The daily operation at a Class 3 landfill includes dumping of waste into a specific area of the landfill - called aworking face - followed by compaction crushing of the waste and then covering of the waste with soil.
Waste is dumped into an open area of the landfill called a cell. Class 3 landfills almost always just have one cell open at a time to accept waste. At the same time, another cell is being built so it is ready when the current cell becomes full.
Space is money. Garbage is compacted or crushed to save space. You've seen the giant tractor with spiked wheels that goes back and forth over the garbage. Well, that's a compactor. It weighs , pounds. The compactor makes three to five passes over the garbage to crush as much garbage into the space as possible. On average, about 1, to 1, pounds of garbage can be compacted into one cubic yard of space. At the end of the day, the working face of the cell is covered with a layer of soil or other cover material to minimize odor, pests and rodents as well as litter.
This is called daily cover. This three-step process is repeated over and over until the cell is filled. The bottom liner system is designed to keep waste from coming in contact with the environment - particularly groundwater. From the bottom up, the system is: 1 2 feet of clay 2 a plastic liner and 3 a protective layer 2 feet thick, usually comprised of sand. Cells are specific areas where the waste is dumped and compacted crushed. According to the EPA, in , almost half of that trash But inevitably, major problems will surface.
From hazardous waste to running out of space, we may be overwhelmed by the rising cost of landfills this century. Landfills, on the other hand, are maintained and regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency. Properly managed, landfills accept MSW and other materials from haulers for a fee, layering it in an excavated hole in the ground, covering with soil, and leaving the waste to decompose. The uncaptured methane, for one, is a major contributor to climate change , 84 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
In fact, numbers reflect that MSW landfills are the third-largest source Aside from greenhouse gases, the landfill-caused environmental crisis runs deeper.
Waste management has an inelegant history —like how 15th-century Paris was plagued with stinking piles of garbage directly outside its city walls. Our practice of locking our waste far away from people, deep in the earth seems like the most sanitary option available. However, our waste today is different; our trash heaps can be toxic to humans. Source: EPA. By simply breaking down the glass and melting it, we can produce new glass. But the shocking fact is that if glass is thrown away in landfills, it takes a million years to decompose.
Paper is the largest element in American municipal solid waste. Recycling paper items saves a lot of landfill space while also reducing the energy and virgin material usage demanded by making non-recycled paper. Food is the second largest waste item in American landfills. Normally, an orange peel takes six months, while an apple core takes around two months, and a banana peel takes two to 10 days, to decompose. Different sources have different information on the actual time various waste items take to decompose.
Here are some estimates for common waste items:. The increasing volume of waste is a major concern for humans and the environment. The best way to deal with this problem is to avoid products that generate waste materials that take more than a year to decompose in landfills. Every household and organization should also have a proactive plan for recycling to divert more materials away from the waste stream.
Pacific Institute. United States Environmental Protection Agency. ACS Publications. Download PDF. Accessed Jan. With more consumers using e-commerce than ever before, industry is leading the way in developing new recycling initiatives that address waste challenges. Take Action. Read More. Top 3 Takeaways 1. What goes into a landfill? How do you build a landfill? Title Description Read More.
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