To be clear, almost no cities recycle their wastewater back into drinking water. In modern times, storm water is generally directed into wastewater and that has

To be clear, almost no cities recycle their wastewater back into drinking water. In modern times, storm water is generally directed into wastewater and that has many of the same nasty chemicals you find in landfill leachate. I’m not sure what you’re suggesting even. If you dump all the water back on the landfill, most of it is just going to flow straight back through. You can’t do this. The liquid is removed because if you let too much liquid build up, the leachate will create too much pressure and break the membrane and leak into the groundwater. In most landfills, the accepted process is wastewater treatment followed by release into rivers.