What are landfills?

Landfills are places where waste is stored. For example, when you throw trash away, it goes to a landfill where the waste is safely stored. In the 1900s the waste was just dumped everywhere which transmitted several diseases and thrashed our environment! Landfills are located and designed and operated to protect our environment and not have any threats.

The trash is just left laying there because the waste there decomposes. Decomposition is a term used where the chemicals disintegrate and that material breaks down the trash into simple substances. So the chemical reaction breaks trash apart and turns it into simple substances. It is then collected and taken to a gas/energy plant where the trash is burned to generate electricity!

As shown in the picture below, this is the process of what even happens in a landfill

1. Composite layer (which is the outer layer of a landfill)
2. Leachate Collection Pipes (placed on the layer for treatment)
3. Crushed Rock Layer (the layer where rocks are crushed to prevent clogging of the pipes)
4. Methane Gas Collection System (Methane is collected from the disintegrating trash)
5. Trash Layer (Trash is dumped to decompose)
6. Soil Cover Layer (A layer of soil that buries trash at the end of the working day)
7. Final cap (installed when the process is done)
8. Fencing
9. Vegetation
10. Groundwater monitoring
11. Continued methane collection and monitoring

Please do make the earth a better place to live for our future generations to come!!!

Image: Maryland.Gov