Belle Fourche Landfill (2024)

FAQs

Are landfills getting too full? ›

Landfill space fills up fast. Americans generate about 4.4 pounds of trash per day, and while some of it is recyclable, most ends up in the dump. Now, many local landfills are closing because there's no more room.

The Puente Hills Landfill is the largest landfill in America. Over 150 m (490 ft) of garbage has risen from the ground since the area became a designated landfill site in 1957. In 1986, there were 7,683 landfills in the United States.

Although many dumps still exist, it is no longer permissible to create new ones in most countries. In contrast, a landfill is an engineered structure with barriers to contain the waste, mechanisms to capture and treat liquid and gaseous waste byproducts, and procedures in place to monitor the surrounding water and air.

The methane that is released due to the decomposing waste is a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to global climate change. The air pollutants escaping from the landfill can also cause respiratory problems in people who live close to the landfill.

According to the US EPA, the material most frequently encountered in MSW landfills is plain old paper, it sometimes accounts for more than 40 percent of a landfill's contents. Newspapers alone can take up as much as 13 percent of the space in US landfills.

If things don't change, the USA could run out of landfill space as early as 22 years, and pressure on remaining landfills will only increase as underserved regions reach capacity. That pressure might be alleviated by increased recycling rates and more infrastructure, as well as by different approaches to waste.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, food scraps are the number one item sent to landfills in the United States. This is on top of plastic and paper.

As of 2022, Connecticut generated the least landfill waste per person of any state in the country, with just 8.7 tons of waste being sent to landfills.

Seven states are looking at running out of landfill space in the next five years, one state will reach capacity in five to 10 years and three states have 11 to 20 years to go. But 22 states have available landfill space for decades to come, Staley says.

Do landfills ruin the soil? ›

Today, wetland soils are usually protected from such uses. Landfills are one way that humans modify how soils form, by changing the soil-forming factors of climate, exposure, and soil organisms. Today, people are learning how to create healthy new soils and restore soils damaged by human activity.

If that is not convenient or is not an option, the best option for food waste is to put your food scraps down the sink into the disposal. Why? Food scraps placed in the garbage and carried to the landfill decompose and produce methane gas, a greenhouse gas which is far more potent that carbon dioxide.

Research shows adverse health effects most likely occur within a 1.8 mile boundary around a Superfund site. Approximately 21 million people live within a mile (PDF) of a Superfund site, potentially exposing them all to harmful chemicals and toxins such as lead, arsenic, and mercury.

Methane is most dangerous if it blows out the side of a landfill-under the ground surface-and migrates into a nearby neighborhood, where it can collect in the confined spaces of homes, and create an explosion risk. The most dangerous landfills are those which began accepting waste many years ago, usually before 1980.

Identifying Odor Sources

In some cases landfill odors can be smelled at a distance of three miles. During the summer of 2021, the smoke from west coast fires could be seen and smelled 2,500 miles away on the east coast.

Given that every 15.5 hours, Americans throw out enough plastic to fill the Dallas Cowboy home field (the largest NFL stadium in the country), it's no wonder that seven states are projected to run out of landfill space in the next five years, and that the entire United States will run out of existing land-fill space in ...

When areas of a landfill site are full, a cap is placed on top. The cap is normally made of a thick layer of compacted clay. It prevents rain from getting into the site and stops smells and gases escaping from the waste. Areas with a cap are normally planted with grass and trees.

Landfill sites are often responsible for the contamination of soil and groundwater, as the contaminating materials (such as heavy materials like lead and mercury) that the stored waste may contain can spread to the soil and water near the plant.

The Danger of Landfill Gases

Well, the sad news is that a million-ton waste pile doesn't create only an esthetic problem, but also an environmental one. The bacterial decomposition of organic material, such as food waste results in the emissions of both methane and carbon dioxide.