Garbage Landfill
After picking up your roll off container truck driver steers into an enormous industrial site. A crowd of crows, swirl of dust, and a whiff of fresh garbage are clues that this is one of North America's largest landfills. The driver rolls up to the weigh scales to see how much are the dumping fees.
This landfill site is as good as it gets. A natural lining of clay goes down 262 feet from the surface, sealing garbage in. Tall portable screens trap airborne litter, while a perimeter of mounded-up soil and the surrounding cornfields help keep garbage out of the neighbors' view. The business of operating a landfill requires making space ready to receive hundred of loads of trash. Enormous earth-moving machines dig a "cell" or pit, and then huge dump trucks remove the soil and stockpile it for later use.
Drains and pipes are installed in the bottom to trap runoff liquid called leachate and to suck off methane gas. Recycled woodchips, a layer of stones, and a fabric liner made from geo-textile material protect the bottom of each cell. Over a hundred loads of garbage arrive at this dump every working day. Some trucks tip their loads; others have a "walking floor" that moves the garbage out the back of the truck. All garbage is deposited at the "tipping face" - the part of the cell that's being filled. Later garbage is squished flat by "Rex" -a mean-looking truck called a crusher.
Every evening a layer of soil or woodchips is spread over the garbage to cover the smell and deter scavengers, such as rodents, coyotes, and wild birds. This layer is removed each morning so that as much garbage as possible can be crammed into each cell. With the garbage exposed once again to the air, birds are discouraged from daytime feeding by trained hunting falcons and loud blasts from a pyrotechnics gun. Birds at a landfill can spread litter and disease. The landfill acts as a large filter. Liquids from the garbage seep through the trash, ending up as leachate in the bottom. Leachate can contain household hazardous waste -such as cleaners, batteries, drugs, or paint -that's toxic to both people and the environment.
This sewagelike brew is pumped from the cell to an on-site water purification plant. Leachate is treated through many steps, including the removal of solids, bits of nonorganic garbage, and organic matter. Solids are buried in the landfill and, when the remaining liquid is considered safe, it is discharged into the local creek.
A by-product of rotting garbage is methane gas. At this landfill, methane is vacuumed into a huge storage cylinder and burned off - energy up in smoke. Methane is a greenhouse gas that changes to a less powerful greenhouse gas when it is burned. Communities are beginning to divert methane into an engine ten times the size of a large car, run it through a generator, and add the resulting electricity to the local supply system or "grid." This process produces green energy from garbage people have thrown away.
Taking a moment I would like to say ‘Thank You’ to green dumpster rentals companies who continuously provides us with interesting material for our dumpster rentals blog:
and many others for their significant input on our mutual environment protection effort.
- Published: 2012-12-15T15:47:47-08:00
- Author: Anna Krupp, Dumpsters & Roll Off Container Consultant
