There are 3,091 active sanitary landfills in the U.S. and over 10,000 old municipal landfills (rubbish pits).

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There are 3,091 active sanitary landfills in the
U.S. and over 10,000 old municipal landfills
(rubbish pits).
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Rubbish Pit vs. Landfill
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Anatomy of a Landfill
Modern sanitary landfills are carefully
engineered structures designed to isolate garbage
from nearby water, soil, wildlife, and people.
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How is a Sanitary Landfill made?
The cavities are dug out of the ground and then
the walls are sealed with layers of clay and
coated with plastic to prevent groundwater
contamination from wastewater that accumulates.
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The Liner
Note the overlapping seams!
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Today's landfills are designed to stay dry
inside, except for liquids that ooze from some
garbage, and rainwater that trickles through. As
water trickles through a landfill, it dissolves
chemicals and other particles, creating a liquid
called "leachate."
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• There are four critical elements in a secure
  landfill
• a bottom liner
• a leachate collection system
• A gas recovery system and a cover
• the natural hydrogeologic setting

The natural setting can be selected to minimize
the possibility of wastes escaping to groundwater
beneath a landfill. The three other elements must
be engineered. Each of these elements is
critical to success.
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Cross-Section of a Landfill
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Cross-section of a sanitary landfill
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What is done with the Leachate?
The state-of-the-art system, constructed at the
bottom of the landfill, has a special
double-liner to prevent leachate leakage. The
contained leachate is run through pipes to
above-ground storage tanks and hauled for
treatment and disposal at a large regional
wastewater treatment plant.
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Landfill Storage Drainage
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Even though there are 2 liners that overlap to
keep leachate from leaking out there is always
that slim chance. So to help protect the public,
landfills are also designed with

• detection meters between the liners which are
  monitored continuously
• monitoring wells around the site which are
  sampled quarterly to test the groundwater quality

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Groundwater Protection
Landfills first existed as rubbish pits with NO
protection from leachate getting into the
groundwater. Next there came an improvement where
a landfill had a clay liner. This afforded some
protection, but not much. Now landfills are
required to have both a clay and plastic liner
plus a leachate collection system to protect the
groundwater from possible contamination.
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The Capping of a FULL Landfill
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So...landfill garbage degrades, right?
Not really. Landfills are mostly anaerobic.
Without the oxygen and water needed to break down
organic materials, all garbage decays very slowly
in a landfill. This means our garbage will
probably be around for a very long time.
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40 Yr-old Newspaper found in Landfill
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Even food does NOT degrade
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Amount of Trash Thrown in Landfills (by
weight)
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Plastics
Plastics can take between 200-400 years to
degrade. Only 3 of it is currently recycled.
Yard Waste
Green Waste (leaves, twigs, Christmas trees)
can be shredded and used as mulch or composted.
Paper Cardboard
Nationwide, paper cardboard account for 41 of
all municipal solid waste. Only about 34.5 is
recycled in the U.S. compared to 40 in Sweden
and 50 in Japan.
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Metal
Recycling aluminum reduces both air and water
pollution by more than 95 due to less energy
needed to mine process it. Only 38 of cans are
recycled.
Glass
Glass was one of the first to be recycled and
continues to lead all others in recycled. It is
the easiest recycled material to use and is the
most cost efficient.
Food Waste
15.8 million tons of food goes to waste in the
U.S. every year. Vegetable plant matter can be
composted (NOT meat or fats) and used for mulch.
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Top 10 Landfill Issues
1. Leakage through plastic membrane 2. Water
Contamination from leachate 3. Air Emissions
(methane other gases) 4. Remediation of old
toxins in landfills 5. Old municipal landfills
contain hazardous waste 6. Location of old
landfills needing remediation close to
large bodies of water 7. Landfill cover usually
is ash from incinerators, not dirt 8.
Monitoring of closed landfills will not be kept
up 9. Detection of old trash dumps 10. Who is
liable when land changes hands?
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What will be Your future?