Using single-use items simply for the sake of convenience certainly comes at a cost. Our throwaway culture creates more problems than it solves. So what do we do with all the things that are no longer needed by society?

In an ideal world, existing material would be re-used and recycled as part of a circular economy. In reality, plenty of plastic ends up in landfills or incinerators, if not floating around in the ocean.

But what is the harm of putting litter into landfills?

Litter that is thrown ‘away’ is out of sight and usually out of mind, but the journey of used plastic items does not end when they are placed in a rubbish bin. The masses of waste material need to be taken care of somehow. Burying litter is one option, but it is not without risk. Alongside gross odour, smoke, noise, bugs and the destruction of natural habitat, there are three major issues associated with landfills: hazardous toxins, leaching and greenhouse gas emission.

Creating Waste Lands

Toxins

The huge variety of materials and items that find their final resting place in landfills contain dangerous toxins that can potentially seep into the surrounding soil or even enter precious groundwater. This process of contamination continues over the course of multiple years. Plastic items buried in landfills can leach harmful components. Electrical devices including computers, phones, televisions and batteries contain hazardous substances such as acids, lead or arsenic. Fluorescent light bulbs and some temperature thermometers contain mercury; a poisonous element that can cause respiratory failure, hair loss and kidney diseases. All of those toxins can pose a serious threat to public health once they enter the natural environment.

Leaching

Over time, as materials in landfills break down, toxic chemicals mix with water that filters through the waste. This poisonous liquid is usually highly polluted and contains a variety of components including carbon dioxide, alcohols, organic acids, methane, or aldehydes, which react with each other.

Greenhouse Gas Emission

The removal of oxygen causes organic material such as compacted food or garden waste to break down anaerobically. This produces methane, a greenhouse gas that is a lot worse for the environment than carbon dioxide. The gas is flammable and can be extremely dangerous, depending on the concentration.

Managing Landfill Waste

Over the years, various techniques and solution strategies have been tried and tested to make landfills less harmful. New landfills often have synthetic membranes or special barriers that collect toxins like mercury, to prevent them from contaminating water and soil. Instead, toxins are channelled and drained through pipes that lead into a sewer system, where they can be retained, burnt or transformed into fertilizer.

Different technologies have been developed to treat the toxic liquid that accumulates inside landfills.  While methane can be caught in liquid form before it escapes into the air, it is still impossible to capture it in its entirety. Furthermore, new composting systems have found ways to allow aerobic digestion or the breakdown of material by microorganisms.

Recently, researchers have also been looking into enzymes that could potentially help break down existing material faster. At the University of Texas, artificial intelligence was used to create a ‘hydrolase’, a type of enzyme that has the ability to break down PET plastic into its separate molecules.

Though all of these developments sound positive, there is only one real solution: Reduce–Reuse–Recycle.

 

Landfills, which cause materials to compose over long periods of time, will eventually present immense problems to future generations.

 

Together, we can solve the future of waste; let us not waste the future.