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Stewing the Town Dump in Its Own Juice
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20149 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
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2 / 1992 |
2,432 Words |
| Author
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Wendall Cross
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Since the first well-gnawed bone along with a worn-out animal skin garment was thrown on the ground outside the mouth of the cave, land disposal has been the most convenient, popular, and cost effective method of "treating" and disposing of solid waste. For this reason and others the town dump has always been one of the archaeologists' most fertile sources of information.
From individual trash piles outside the cave we graduated to community dumps where any and all refuse was simply dumped. These facilities were an eyesore as well as a hazard for both people and the environment.
In the early twentieth centaury larger metropolitan areas began to design and operate trash dumping sites for disposal of large quantities of solid waste in a more efficient and regulated manner. This marked the creation of the municipal or sanitary landfill. However, these landfills for many years accepted all types of waste materials and it wasn't until environmental concerns began to emerge in the late 1960s and early 1970s that much thought was given to more stringent regulation of these disposal sites.
Current and pending regulations allow us to divide landfills into three broad categories: the municipal or solid waste landfill, the secure or hazardous waste landfill, and repositories for radioactive materials. Landfills are as vital a part of an industrialized country's infrastructure as are the drinking water systems, the sewers and sewage treatment systems, the highways, and the gas and electrical distribution systems.
This article introduces research devoted to improving the design and operation of municipal landfills, which are the disposal sites for the waters generated by individuals or households in the ordinary conduct of life. A landfill, inevitably is the site of microbial reactions that convert available organic matter into basic constituents. One major research and development challenge is to develop means of managing these reactions so the products can either be harvested or contained, providing some financial return while minimizing potential environmental contamination.
Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind
In common landfill practice, once the garbage leaves our house its only treatment prior to disposal is shredding in order to reduce as much as possible the volume of waste. At the disposal site a "cell," the active working area, has been bug
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