If the landfill services a larger city and is properly designed, I’d say throwing garbage there is better for the environment than tossing stuff out the window (If you’re just comparing those two options and disregarding composting and waste separation/recycling).
Biodegradable garbage in landfills does break down anaerobically, and to different extents based on temperature, composition, and humidity. Some places (like where I am) are cold and dry, so you kinda “mummify” a lot of stuff. Others are better environments for microbial degradation, so things break down faster.
Modern (properly constructed) landfills have extensive liners and leak detection systems, and are built over areas with a lot of clay to slow down any leachate migration. The working face (where the stuff is dumped) is covered over daily to minimize scavenging, wind scattering, and smells. During operation and upon closing, they have measures in place to prevent a lot of precipitation from entering and may even have methane recovery wells installed. If you design and build a landfill like that, I’d say it’s pretty good (though not ideal of course).
The non-biodegradables don’t really have any negative impact on the environment once they are thrown away; they just take up space. The actual damage is done mostly by the leachate and gas production of those lovely putricibles - the things we should compost. But if you can contain your leachate, these may not be so bad, and over time the leachate will lose some of it’s nastiness (eg the pH will rise back to around neutral).
We already tried the “toss it out the window” approach a couple hundred years ago, with pretty disgusting and disease-ridden results… let’s not try that again. When I mention landfilling garbage from a big city being not that bad, I’m referring to the amount produced versus natural environment to break it down. Due to the density of people in cities, you get a lot more garbage produced per block or square mile than you would in the country where there’s 6 people per square mile.
Add to this the fact that within and around a city the environment is significantly different from it’s natural state. There aren’t the near number and diversity of animals, plants, natural systems and other stuff like that to fully break stuff down, especially when we use pesticides and landscaping to change things to our liking.
Just imagine taking all the garbage bags you put out by the curb every week and spreading them evenly over your yard… still wanna roll around in the grass six months later?:eek: ?
