Everything you need to know about landfills, including Ontario’s shortage of them
We’re all too familiar with the life cycle of trash within the context of our household - when we’re done with an item we dispose of it in the bin, drag the bin out to the curb on garbage day, and bid it adieu! Most of us, though, know shockingly little about what happens to that trash once it leaves for the landfill and it’s this lack of connection to the complete journey of our trash that can often cause us to toss items in the bin with such ease. Our hope for this blog is that it provides some insight into the full life cycle of a piece of trash so that we can find a more sustainable way to part with our things. We’ll first provide an overview of how landfills work and then dive into an issue that hits close to home - our shortage of landfills in Ontario and how its impacting people and the planet.
How does a landfill work?
Source: US Energy Information Administration (EIA)
“Landfill” is one of those words that paints a pretty clear big picture - it’s a piece of land that we fill with garbage! That said, the specifics of how this works are more complex due to the risks of pollution and contamination that our trash poses. Unlike the dumps of decades past, today’s landfill is a complex system utilizing a variety of technologies to ensure waste is efficiently and safely stored.
The most basic components of a landfill include the following, if you’re curious!
Liners: Lines are things that go underneath the trash, before we dispose of it in the landfill, to separate it from the environment and groundwater. Landfills might use clay liners, plastic liners, or both!
Cells: On top of the liners lies the trash, which is separated into cells and compacted with heavy machinery to make the most use of available space as possible. Dirt is also layered on top of the cells to contain odors and prevent unwanted pests.
Drainage systems: These systems ensure that liquids accumulated within the trash cells are properly sequestered and treated (through a leachate system collection) as well as keeping rainwater out of the cells (through a storm water drainage system). Liquids are tested for harmful chemicals and treated as well. Groundwater testing stations also monitor the quality of water around the landfill to ensure it is not contaminated.
Gas collection systems: Harmful gases are released in landfills during the process of decomposition. Gas collection systems ensure this gas is carried to treatment areas where it can be vented, burned, or converted into energy.
Cap: A plastic liner covers the landfill once it is full, and soil is again used to form an additional layer. Vegetation with small rooting systems are planted in this soil to prevent soil erosion.
Different types of waste require different types of landfills, with the most obvious distinction being between hazardous and non-hazardous waste.
Ontario’s landfill shortage
Source: CBC
“Great”, you may be thinking, “my waste is being responsibly disposed of, so I don’t need to worry too much about chucking something in the bin!” While landfills have come a long way with respect to their environmental impact, there are still some critical issues to consider.
While many precautions are taken to ensure that the environmental (and, by extension, public health) risk posed by landfills are mitigated, there have been instances in which the safeguards put in place have not gone far enough or have not functioned properly, resulting in groundwater contamination.
It’s this concern that causes some dissent from communities anytime a new landfill is proposed, and recent changes to legislation with respect to the landfill construction process is stoking the fire of yet another issue with landfills - finding the land to fill.
Last year, the Ontario government amended the Environmental Assessment Act to provide local municipal councils the ability to approve or reject the construction of new landfill sites that are up to 3.5km from their boundaries. This means that the approval of multiple municipalities may be required for the construction of just one site, which can paralyze the waste management system, creating a shortage of space for our garbage. This is against the backdrop of a planet that is already using a substantial amount of land for human purposes.
A further issue surrounds how the construction of new landfills may be outsourced to municipalities in need of revenue, leading to a two-tier system where affluent municipalities can reject landfill construction proposals while poorer municipalities lack the financial ability to say no.
What’s the solution?
So, landfills have been optimized and made as safe from an environmental and public health perspective as possible, but risk still remains, land available for use is shrinking, and social justice issues can exist when waste is effectively forcibly outsourced to less financially sound municipalities. What to do? You have probably already guessed - produce less waste. By producing less waste, we can extend the life of existing landfills, mitigating several of their associated risks. The key is to scrap our take-make-dispose model and instead introduce something more sustainable - an economy that prioritizes reusing, repairing, and repurposing our items, otherwise known as the circular economy. You can learn more about that in our blog here!
We hope you found this article helpful! One of the easiest ways to reduce trash in the landfill is to reduce single-use items - those items that we use one time, often for a fleeting moment, before tossing them in the trash. Takeout waste is a major culprit here, generating over 78 million pieces of trash in Toronto alone! You can help keep single-use trash from food delivery out of the landfill by ordering through Suppli. Our partner restaurants pack your takeout meal in completely reusable, food grade containers that you simply rinse and return to one of our conveniently located drop off locations. It doesn’t get much easier to eat takeout sustainably than that!
