Overview and implications of U.S. sanitary landfill practice

This paper is a summary of observations and trends regarding landfill practice based on a fifteen state, four-and-a-half month tour of facilities and professionals involved in municipal solid waste management, supplemented by 25 years of experience in the field. Modern landfills tend to be well designed and operated, with an emphasis on containment of waste and products of decomposition through liner systems and cover design, plus good operating practice. Forces leading to our concept of modern landfills are based on a history of inadequate landfills and their impacts, and on long-term liability issues, but also stem from a lack of responsibility by the public and their representatives for handling their own waste. While modern landfills incorporate many improvements over previous facilities, the driving forces shaping landfill design now and in the future are unfortunately not based on sound technical and managerial principals and could lead to future problems. The trend to drier landfills, thereby prolonging decomposition, is of special concern in this regard.