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Happily. Old landfill sites are not built to modern standards and are thus liable to erode, with the potential to contaminate the surrounding areas with a range
by rikroots 7y ago
Happily. Old landfill sites are not built to modern standards and are thus liable to erode, with the potential to contaminate the surrounding areas with a range of interesting toxins. They can also collapse (if they contained a significant amount of biodegradable waste) which is unfortunate if your house is built on top of it.
A quick Google search gave me this link to some ongoing research conducted by Queen Mary College, London, into the risks surrounding historic landfills - https://www.qmul.ac.uk/geog/research/research-projects/historiclandfill/ https://www.qmul.ac.uk/geog/research/research-projects/histo... - that page does a far better job of explaining the situation than I can.
- cperciva 7y agoOk, but isn't the answer to "old landfill sites are not built to modern standards" that new landfill sites should be built to modern standards?
- celeritascelery 7y agoExactly. It’s like saying that old sewage systems were not built to modern standards and that led to disease transmission. Therefore sewage systems are bad. That is the whole point of “modern standards”.
- rikroots 7y agoThere will always be a need for landfill sites. And the current standards for their construction, use and end-of-life maintenance are vastly higher than they were 20 years ago. Sadly, making sure operational/new landfill sites stick to the standards doesn't fix the problems surrounding old/abandoned landfill sites. If people want to make those sites safe(r), then that's going to cost a lot of money.