What Is a Landfills? Landfill Types Explained

Most individuals keep rubbish “out of site, out of mind”. After the garbage truck or roll off dumpster leaves your driveway, where does it go?

To understand why there have been restrictions about what can be dumped with your curbside garbage or why some dumpsters could only take certain things, you need to understand the different landfill kinds.

What Are The 4 Landfill Types?

There are 3 kinds of landfills: municipal, industrial, and hazardous. Each takes various garbage and has varied environmental policies. Green waste landfills allow for controlled dumping of organic materials.

1. Landfills For MSW

If you put it in a rubbish can, it will likely wind up in an MSW landfill. These are the typical landfill locations. The fact that they will be the most prevalent does not indicate they are public.

MSW landfills have some of the tightest safety and monitoring rules due to the wide range of waste types they handle. These guidelines often restrict landfill location, liner, operations, groundwater monitoring, and closure.

2. Industries Recyclage

This landfill is self-explanatory. Industrial trash is disposed of in a landfill. These landfills can accept any form of solid industrial waste, however they are most typically used for constructions debris disposal, hence the name C&D landfills. Typical industrial waste items include:

  • Concrete
  • Lumber
  • Asphalt
  • Gypsum
  • Metal
  • Bricks
  • Component

Rather than only storing construction debris, C&D landfills often double as metal recovery facilities (MRFs). Workers at the landfill sort the objects brought in to determine which materials can be reused and which should be disposed of. Most of the recycled material are contributed to or purchased by local resale shops or enterprises. The resource recovery facility may also recycle items on-site, such as lumber chipped into mulch.

3. Hazardous Waste Dumping

Hazardous waste dumps are the most tightly controlled and structured. They are designed to retain waste materials in a method that nearly eliminates environmental release. Some hazardous waste landfill design standards include:

  • Liners
  • Double leachate removal systems
  • Detection of leaks
  • Run-on, run-off, and wind controls
  • Quality control in construction

In additional to these architectural criteria, hazardous waste dumps are frequently inspected to ensure they meet all legal and regulatory requirements.

If you think you might be trying to dispose of a forbidden object, absolutely guarantee it would be difficult. Hazardous garbage is not handled curbside and is only permitted in containers with prior notification.

4.Greenswag landfills

While the EPA has not approved these as landfills, many towns are beginning to offer natural decomposition sites. Composting sites are growing in popularity as landfills & transfer stations become less receptive of organic commodities including fruits, vegetables, and yard waste. “Some will accept more yard waste,” Morris added. Many but not all transfer stations allow it. It’s all up to your municipality.”

Green waste includes:

  • Mulch
  • Weeds
  • Leaves
  • twigs
  • Organic food waste
  • Cut flowers and grass

Green trash landfills exist to save space in these other Landfills by keeping materials that naturally breakdown out. A recent EPA research demonstrated that composting landfills do just that. In 2017, 24,420 tonnes of yard trimming were composted and 8,650 tonnes were disposed, compared to 4,200 tonnes in 1990 and 25,560 tonnes in 1990.

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