An Inside Look at Landfills

Do you ever wonder what happens to that piece of trash you throw away? Where does it end up? What happens to it? Americans generate nearly 4.6 pounds of waste per day per person. That's nearly 250 million tons of waste produced per year! All that trash is sent to landfills to decompose. Landfills are given a bad rap, but it's really the stuff in landfills that's bad. For example, nearly 50% of landfill space is taken up by paper. If that paper would have been recycled then more energy and resources could have been saved.

There are actually several different classifications of landfills and they are heavily monitored to ensure they do not contaminate the environment per the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Regardless of the regulations set in place, landfills are still the third largest source of methane emissions in the US. Trash is buried under layers and layers of trash that cut off the supply of oxygen and cause anaerobic decomposition. Any organic matter that is sent to landfills is a wasted resource as well since food can easily be composted and repurposed.

Trash production in the US has almost tripled since the 1960s. 32.5% of the trash is recycled, 12.5% is burned and 55% is buried in landfills. Those numbers need to change, we need to see an increase in recycled product and send as little as possible to landfills. Burning trash may provide an alternative use and provide power, but it also uses a similar amount of water per unit of electricity generated. The use of that water comes with its own environmental repercussions.

It's not easy to live a zero-waste lifestyle when all food products come in pre-packaged plastics, but with just a little effort we can easily reduce the trash we put in landfills with just a second of thought. Ensure you know what can be recycled, located your nearest recycling bins and take advantage of them.