Alexis Ferko

Shannon Ozzimo
Tara Sheridan

Landfills are a major concern for the environment and for the health of the people.
Landfills are an area of land where it is safe to dispose of solid waste. Solid waste could
be either household trash or hazardous waste, like toxic chemicals. Landfills are generally
not in a highly populated area and if they are maintained properly, there isnt much
hazard to living in the general area of the landfill. If a landfill is not well maintained and
contains toxic chemicals, there can be major health and environmental concerns. These
toxic chemicals can be vaporized into the air and can cause major problems for people
and increases air pollution. Landfills are unsustainable. Year after year, more land is
taken up from the waste in landfills. Every year, 175 million tons of trash and hazardous
waste enters landfills. Items like plastic and Styrofoam take millions of years to
decompose which takes up a lot of unwanted space. There is a major global
environmental concern with landfills.

The first global concern for landfills is that there is not enough room for the
landfills to occupy. Every year, the solid waste that is disposed takes up more and more
land and not enough material is being recycled. Household cleaning chemicals and the
organic waste that is rotting produces methane. Methane can be extremely dangerous to
both the environment and to the health of people. Methane can majorly pollute the air and
affect the health of the people living around the landfill. This happens all around the
world because so many landfills are not properly maintained. From all of the various
chemicals mixing together, fires can easily ignite. Landfill fires can exponentially
increase air pollution, water pollution and completely destroy various animal habitats.
Methane is highly flammable and can be very difficult to put out a fire started by
methane. Electronic waste is a major issue because it releases chemicals highly toxic such
as lead and cadmium. These chemicals can be washed away by rain and pollute the
municipal water supply.