What exactly happens to the garbage that ends up in landfill?

50 years ago before the wide spread use of both plastic grocery and garbage bags, plastic food packaging and plastic bottles the general population put their garbage in paper bags (from the grocer's). It was picked by basically the same compactor trucks we have today and delivered to a landfill. read more

Modern landfill systems collect methane in a layer of pipes placed above the solid waste layer. Some landfills vent this methane into the air. In others, it is collected to market or burn as an energy source. A lot of the trash that ends up in landfills can certainly be recycled or reused in other ways. read more

On trash pickup day in your neighborhood, you push your can out to the curb, and workers dump the contents into a big truck and haul it away. You don't have to think about that waste again, either. But maybe you have wondered, as you watch the trash truck pull away, just where that garbage ends up. read more

Trash put in a landfill will stay there for a very long time. Inside a landfill, there is little oxygen and little moisture. Under these conditions, trash does not break down very rapidly. In fact, when old landfills have been excavated or sampled, 40-year-old newspapers have been found with easily readable print. read more