Landfill - Sanitary Landfill, Method Types, Decomposition, Operating Principles, Alternatives To Landfills, Recycling, Composting
waste materials solid tons
The term "sanitary landfill" was first used in the 1930s to refer to the compacting of solid waste materials. Initially adopted by New York City and Fresno, California, the sanitary landfill used heavy earth-moving equipment to compress waste materials and then cover them with soil. The practice of covering solid waste was evident in Greek civilization over 2,000 years ago, but the Greeks did it without compacting.
Today, the sanitary landfill is the major method of disposing waste materials in North America and other developed countries, even though considerable efforts are being made to find alternative methods, such as recycling, incineration, and composting. Among the reasons that landfills remain a popular alternative are their simplicity and versatility. For example, they are not sensitive to the shape, size, or weight of a particular waste material. Since they are constructed of soil, they are rarely affected by the chemical composition of a particular waste component or by any collective incompatibility of co-mingled wastes. By comparison, composting and incineration require uniformity in the form and chemical properties of the waste for efficient operation. About 67% of the solid waste generated in the United States is still dumped in landfills. This corresponds to several tons of waste per landfill daily, considering 4.5 lb (2 kg) of solid waste is generated each day per person in this country. Americans will have created approximately 220 million tons of solid waste in the year 2000. The many tons of solid waste dumped in a landfill today will not decompose until 30 years from now. In order to create environmentally friendly landfills, new sites are being engineered to recover the methane gas that is generated during decomposition, and some older landfills are being mined for useful products.
About 70% of materials that are routinely disposed of in landfills could be recycled instead. More than 30% of bulk municipal garbage collections consist of paper that could be remanufactured into other paper products. Other materials like plastic, metal, and glass can also be reused in manufacturing, which can greatly reduce the amount of waste materials disposed in landfills, as well as preserving sources of nonrenewable raw materials.
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Sanitary landfills involve well-designed engineering methods to protect the environment from contamination by solid or liquid wastes. A necessary condition in designing a sanitary landfill is the availability of vacant land that is accessible to the community being served and has the capacity to handle several years of waste material. In addition, cover soil must be available. Of course, the locat…
Trench and area methods, along with combinations of both, are used in the operation of landfills. Both methods operate on the principle of a "cell," which in landfills comprises the compacted waste and soil covering for each day. The trench method is good in areas where there is relatively little waste, low groundwater, and the soil is over 6 ft (1.8 m) deep. The area method is usual…
A landfill has three stages of decomposition. The first one is an aerobic phase. The solid wastes that are biodegradable react with the oxygen in the landfill and begin to form carbon dioxide and water. Temperature during this stage of decomposition in the landfill rises about 30°F (16.7°C) higher than the surrounding air. A weak acid forms within the water and some of the minerals a…
While landfills may outwardly appear simple, they need to operate carefully and follow specific guidelines that include where to start filling, wind direction, the type of equipment used, method of filling, roadways to and within the landfill, the angle of slope of each daily cell, controlling contact of the waste with groundwater, and the handling of equipment at the landfill site. Considerations…
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires all new landfills to include a leachate collection system. Recirculation of leachate accelerates the decomposition of solid waste. Another alternative use of landfills is to capture the methane gas produced during decomposition to generate electricity. For example, in Yolo County, California, a landfill releases 1.4 million cubic fee…
As a method of reducing the costs of solid waste disposal in landfills and of solving the problem of finding suitable landfill sites, many communities have initiated recycling programs. Some programs are carried out by segregating and collecting the recyclables separately from the materials destined for the landfill. There are also many drop-off programs for specific items such as bottles, plastic…
The composting of organic materials for reuse in gardening and in agriculture can help alleviate the problem of using land to dispose of waste material. Plant and food substances are biodegradable, which means they are capable of decomposing through the agency of bacteria, fungi, and other living organisms. Temperature and sunlight play a role in the decomposition of biodegradable substances as we…
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