What Happens to Trash in a Landfill?
Trash put in many landfills 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. Landfills were not designed to break down trash, merely to bury it. When a landfill closes, the site, especially the groundwater, must be monitored and maintained for more than 30 years! We don’t just THROW things AWAY – there is NO “AWAY”: Michigan landfills BURIED nearly 64 MILLION CUBIC YARDS OF WASTE IN 2005 that is not going “AWAY”. Most of it (2/3rds) is our very own Michigan waste, not from from out of state or Canada. Reducing the source of waste, including REUSE of materials, rests in the hands of our communities and individuals who value a quality of life that is SUSTAINABLE and not wasteful or harmful to the land, water or air we are stewards of, which sustains
