Landfill Facts that Every Zero-Waster Should Know

As I write this it is zero waste week, day one. The first challenge involves learning more about landfills. This makes sense; a major part of going zero waste is sending as little to landfill as possible. So, I wanted to take a moment to share a little more information about rubbish dumps. Climate change is just one way these beastly monstrosities impact the environment and humanity but there are more. Here are some landfill facts that every zero-waster should know.

Landfill Sites Produce Greenhouse Gasses

You can read more in-depth about the role dumps play in global warming via my collaboration with Living Life Our Way, here. However, the main thing to take into consideration is that the way we store waste in landfill means that when organic material (food remains or greenery for example) is compacted into the mix, methane builds up. Naturally, it escapes into the atmosphere and being that it is 25 times more absorbent than carbon dioxide it does enormous amounts of warming over short periods of time.

Highly Toxic Leachate

It would be possible to create an entire blog post about what this is, how it is created and what it can do. I’m not going to do that. Simply put; leachate is liquid that is created when waste breaks down and water is added to the mix. The thing about liquid, is it seeps, it flows, it gets everywhere. So, whilst landfills have systems in place and drainage the risk of land and water on-site and nearby becoming infected is extremely high. It also leads into another issue…

Landfill Land Becomes Uninhabitable

Due to overpopulation and lack domestic and agricultural space humanity is getting more aggressive in its actions against nature. Of course, this causes more deforestation and aggressive expansionism. Natural environments are destroyed and the ecosystem that supports our life is decimated as well as that of all the other life in those environments. The more waste we send to landfill; the more space we lose. Obviously, this exasperates the issue.

Communities Surrounding Landfill Sites

It is a heartbreaking fact that in reality, there are poverty-stricken communities that form around landfill sites worldwide. Even inside of them. There have been numerous stories of families loosing their homes or dying because waste crushing them or an accident involving methane. If you think that this doesn’t affect us because no such thing exists in the UK; let me remind you that even if that is true, as our landfills reach capacity, our waste goes overseas.

Biodiversity Impact

Biodiversity is important. I have said this before. Landfill sites cause changes in the local ecosystem. Indigenous species of animals and plants are replaced my those that scavenge or are able to survive in harsher environments. Rats for example. What we end up with is wildlife able to thrive in urban environments and able to migrate. This can also lead to disease and pollution spreading to other wildlife however.

The Busy Papa

Also known as Aaron, The Busy Papa focuses on lifestyle, parenting and personal wellbeing content. He has two decades experience in creative writing (including several published poems) and strongly dislikes (though tolerates) tomatoes.