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I don't understand people's aversion to landfills. Perhaps it's because people intuitively understand that dumping garbage is not sustainable indefinitely, i.e.

I don't understand people's aversion to landfills. Perhaps it's because people intuitively understand that dumping garbage is not sustainable indefinitely, i.e. Earth will eventually run out of room. However, there is currently plenty of space for landfills. I think more things should go into landfills. Don't try to recycle plastic, just make sure it securely ends up in a landfill without ending up in the ocean and lock it away forever. That seems great. Why you'd want to take a perfectly stable thing and combust it, potentially leaking toxins into the atmosphere and environment, is beyond me.

nso95 5y ago
Landfills give off huge amounts of greenhouse gases
- picture 5y ago
  The majority of which come from food waste that's left to decompose in the landfill. Those could and should be separated for composting. The released methane and stuff can also be captured.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    My council has been collecting and composting that for years. Once a year we can go and collect free compost.
alkonaut 5y ago
Most of the plastics I deal with is packaging. North of 60% of all packaging material was recycled. So that needs to come from somewhere.
- picture 5y ago
  Are you including cardboard with that statistic? The majority of plastic packaging (at least where I live) are absolutely not recycled
  - alkonaut 5y ago
    No that’s all packsging. It’s only 34% for plastic which is worst of them all.
- simulate-me 5y ago
  My point is that plastic comes from oil stored in the ground. There is nothing wrong with taking oil out of the ground, turning it into plastic, and then putting the plastic back in the ground. "Recycled" plastic packaging is much worse. Oil is taken out of ground and turned in to plastic, which is then shipped to south east Asia or Africa for recycling, Most of the plastic can't economically be recycled and ends up in the ocean due to poor sanitation standards, and then finally you get your recycled plastic packaging after the recycled plastic is shipped back to you.
acomjean 5y ago
I used to work designing landfills and they're not a bad choice. Right now many landfills in the us are the worlds largest bags. They definitely are now better engineered so that toxic substances have less chance of leaching into the ground. They roll out large sheets of plastic and weld them together. Some states (NY) require dual liners (bags in a bag) and piping to collect the liquid that comes out at the bottom "(leachate). When they put the plastic top on holes are made to allow waste gas to escape. Landfills tend to be dry and nothing rots in them. I think they work well, but its better to reduce the waste going into them. I'm assuming many places in the world aren't handling the trash like this leading to issues with groundwater contamination and other problems.
- tommiegannert 5y ago
  How is the leachate treated? That must be a mix of lots of (unknown) bad stuff. Isn't the main problem that landfills aren't sustainable? Burning is bad for CO2 in the atomsphere, but it frees up de-bonds matter so they can be taken up again.
  - acomjean 4y ago
    I mean landfills are burying useful matter. Stuff doesn't really rot it just sits there. I'm not sure how the leachate was treated. At the end of the day the cap was supposed to keep the water out, so when closed there wouldn't be much more leachate.
- olau 5y ago
  What's the lifetime of that plastic liner? It will break down eventually, no?
  - acomjean 5y ago
    The ones we specified were high quality HDPE plastic placed on top of a bentonite mat or 1 foot of clay (a low water permiable material). I’m guessing it would last a long long time. Acording to this study 400 years. https://deq.mt.gov/files/Land/Hardrock/Documents/TintinaMines/2016%20September%20Revision/App%20K/App%20K-3%20Life%20Expectancy%20of%20HDPE%20Geomembrane%20Lining%20Systems.pdf?ver=2016-09-19-155427-510(pdf) https://deq.mt.gov/files/Land/Hardrock/Documents/TintinaMine...
jvanvleet 5y ago
If the trash was sorted so we buried "caches" of plastic separate from chemicals, cardboard, electronics, etc I think there is some short term sense here. My issue with landfills is that mixing all that stuff into a big pile in the ground just makes more useless for the future. I believe that future us might find a way to make use of some of these types of waste if they were separated and easy to get back. To put it another way, at least make it as easy as possible for the future to try to fix this if we must be so wasteful.
gruez 5y ago
>I don't understand people's aversion to landfills. Perhaps it's because people intuitively understand that dumping garbage is not sustainable indefinitely, i.e. Earth will eventually run out of room. However, there is currently plenty of space for landfills. That's exactly it. It's the whole reason why there was a huge recycling push in the 80s/90s. >GONZALEZ: There were all these stats coming out at the time that showed that the number of landfills in America was plummeting. Landfills were closing, and people kept citing these stats in stories about the garbage barge. >KINNAMAN: And so people put it all together, and in their minds, the conclusion was that the United States is running out of landfill space. The United States was full - that we couldn't store any more. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/739893511 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/739893511

nso95 5y ago

Landfills give off huge amounts of greenhouse gases

picture 5y ago
The majority of which come from food waste that's left to decompose in the landfill. Those could and should be separated for composting. The released methane and stuff can also be captured.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  My council has been collecting and composting that for years. Once a year we can go and collect free compost.

alkonaut 5y ago

Most of the plastics I deal with is packaging. North of 60% of all packaging material was recycled. So that needs to come from somewhere.

picture 5y ago
Are you including cardboard with that statistic? The majority of plastic packaging (at least where I live) are absolutely not recycled
- alkonaut 5y ago
  No that’s all packsging. It’s only 34% for plastic which is worst of them all.
simulate-me 5y ago
My point is that plastic comes from oil stored in the ground. There is nothing wrong with taking oil out of the ground, turning it into plastic, and then putting the plastic back in the ground. "Recycled" plastic packaging is much worse. Oil is taken out of ground and turned in to plastic, which is then shipped to south east Asia or Africa for recycling, Most of the plastic can't economically be recycled and ends up in the ocean due to poor sanitation standards, and then finally you get your recycled plastic packaging after the recycled plastic is shipped back to you.

acomjean 5y ago

I used to work designing landfills and they're not a bad choice. Right now many landfills in the us are the worlds largest bags. They definitely are now better engineered so that toxic substances have less chance of leaching into the ground. They roll out large sheets of plastic and weld them together. Some states (NY) require dual liners (bags in a bag) and piping to collect the liquid that comes out at the bottom "(leachate). When they put the plastic top on holes are made to allow waste gas to escape. Landfills tend to be dry and nothing rots in them. I think they work well, but its better to reduce the waste going into them. I'm assuming many places in the world aren't handling the trash like this leading to issues with groundwater contamination and other problems.

tommiegannert 5y ago
How is the leachate treated? That must be a mix of lots of (unknown) bad stuff. Isn't the main problem that landfills aren't sustainable? Burning is bad for CO2 in the atomsphere, but it frees up de-bonds matter so they can be taken up again.
- acomjean 4y ago
  I mean landfills are burying useful matter. Stuff doesn't really rot it just sits there. I'm not sure how the leachate was treated. At the end of the day the cap was supposed to keep the water out, so when closed there wouldn't be much more leachate.
olau 5y ago
What's the lifetime of that plastic liner? It will break down eventually, no?
- acomjean 5y ago
  The ones we specified were high quality HDPE plastic placed on top of a bentonite mat or 1 foot of clay (a low water permiable material). I’m guessing it would last a long long time. Acording to this study 400 years. https://deq.mt.gov/files/Land/Hardrock/Documents/TintinaMines/2016%20September%20Revision/App%20K/App%20K-3%20Life%20Expectancy%20of%20HDPE%20Geomembrane%20Lining%20Systems.pdf?ver=2016-09-19-155427-510(pdf) https://deq.mt.gov/files/Land/Hardrock/Documents/TintinaMine...

jvanvleet 5y ago

If the trash was sorted so we buried "caches" of plastic separate from chemicals, cardboard, electronics, etc I think there is some short term sense here. My issue with landfills is that mixing all that stuff into a big pile in the ground just makes more useless for the future. I believe that future us might find a way to make use of some of these types of waste if they were separated and easy to get back. To put it another way, at least make it as easy as possible for the future to try to fix this if we must be so wasteful.

gruez 5y ago

>I don't understand people's aversion to landfills. Perhaps it's because people intuitively understand that dumping garbage is not sustainable indefinitely, i.e. Earth will eventually run out of room. However, there is currently plenty of space for landfills. That's exactly it. It's the whole reason why there was a huge recycling push in the 80s/90s. >GONZALEZ: There were all these stats coming out at the time that showed that the number of landfills in America was plummeting. Landfills were closing, and people kept citing these stats in stories about the garbage barge. >KINNAMAN: And so people put it all together, and in their minds, the conclusion was that the United States is running out of landfill space. The United States was full - that we couldn't store any more. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/739893511 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/739893511