History of Landfills

HISTORY OF LANDFILLS

There are two different types of landfills; the first type is the old style landfill called open dumps. The open dumps are trash or unwanted items that are thrown into a ditch or just a pile. Open dumps are poorly maintained waste disposals because they cause many environmental problems such as: they can ruin the beauty of the area and animals that carry diseases make their home there. Plus, rain water drains through and carries harmful substances to nearby streams and to the ground water, which is used for drinking (Wright & Boorse, 2011). Some open dumps are burned which can cause smoke and foul-smelling odor in the air. The burning of open dumps have been prohibited in the United States, even though there are some people still burn a small pit to burn their trash.

The second type is called a landfill, also called early landfill (Wright & Boorse, 2011). This type of landfill is properly operated and it causes some damage to the environment, but not as much as the open dump. Heavy tractors firmly pack the waste and then cover with either dirt or clay every day in order to keep bugs and rodents out. These landfills are located outside of a town and they were either naturally made into a gully or was already a dump site (Wright et al). When these landfills were full they would be covered by dirt and just left alone. In recent years, people have realized that these old landfills are good for something. There was an old landfill where I use to live in Colorado, because I remember going with my Father to take trash. This place stayed bare for many years and now is the most beautiful soccer field in the area.

There are some problems with the early landfills if not properly cared for. The first problem is called leachate (Wright & Boorse, 2011). Leachate is where chemicals such as from: batteries, old appliances, lead, cans that have been rusted over, have dissolved into the water that goes to the underground water and contaminate our drinking water. The second problem is methane production (Wright et al). Once the trash is buried it lacks oxygen, which is also called anaerobic. Anaerobic is the byproduct needed to process biogas (mixture of methane, hydrogen and carbon dioxide), which is a highly flammable mixture (Wright et al). If this mixture is ignited it could cause the landfill to explode up to one thousand feet around the landfill (Wright et al). The mixture could also kill the vegetation roots which would cause erosion and the landfill would be exposed. The third problem associated with landfills is incomplete decomposition (Wright et al). There are some items that are supposed to be biodegradable, but without water they take more time such as wood, newspapers, phone books and corn-based plastics. If there was enough water going through the landfill then there would not be a problem and as long as these things are an incomplete decomposition, then the more gases there are. The fourth problem landfills could face is called settling (Wright et al). Settling is when the trash finally starts to decompose and the ground starts to fall in. The only thing that you would want to put on top of the landfills would be parks or just leave open. If houses were on top they would just fall to the ground because