Sustainable Landfills
Our business is fundamentally about keeping communities clean and healthy, and landfills help play an an important role.
Sustainable Landfills
The Role and Evolution of Landfills
Until we live in a world without waste, landfills will remain an essential tool to protect the environment and keep communities clean. We operate more than 200 landfills across North America, all of them highly engineered for the safe disposal of household and non-hazardous waste.
How Landfills Work
Landfills are highly engineered facilities, consisting of sophisticated environmental systems that safely encapsulate waste and protect surrounding communities.
How Waste Enters the Landfill
Trucks that enter a landfill cross a scale, where we check the weight and waste type to ensure compliance with all regulations. Trucks unload the waste in an open landfill cell, also referred to as the “working face,” which is compacted and covered daily.
Landfill Liners
Landfills have protective liners made of geosynthetic clay and geomembranes made of thick plastic. These liners help keep leachate, or water that percolates through a landfill, from reaching the soil below.
Collection
Liquid and Gas Management
A network of pipes and pumps paired with strategic slopes inside the landfill capture the leachate and route it to large tanks, where it is either sent to a wastewater treatment plant or treated on site.
Biogas Collection
When organic waste breaks down in a landfill, it produces biogas, which is about 50% methane, a greenhouse gas. We capture this biogas with collection wells, and our priority is to convert it into renewable energy.
Highlight
90%
Of Our Landfill Acreage is Covered By Gas Wells
Phyto-Utilization
Through a process called phyto-utilization, we are using trees and grasses planted at some landfills to naturally extract liquid and some contaminants. This is beneficial because it lowers the landfill’s carbon footprint, reduces transportation costs to wastewater treatment plants, and promotes biodiversity by preserving critical habitats for birds and other native wildlife.
Closed Landfill
Landfills that reach their capacity require continued care to protect the environment and neighboring communities. We maintain more than 125 closed landfills, often requiring 30 years or more of leachate and gas collection management.
When a landfill closes, a final cover system made up of soil, vegetation or a geosynthetic liner is put in place to protect it from the elements. In some cases, closed landfills can be transformed into solar farms or wildlife habitats.
Hazardous Waste Landfill
Hazardous and complex waste streams require specialized facilities to ensure safe disposal. Our hazardous waste, or Subtitle C, landfills are constructed to rigorous standards consisting of two geosynthetic liners and two compacted clay layers to prevent leachate from escaping. They are highly regulated with several environmental leak detection and monitoring systems in place. An intricate intake process, including pre-screening and on-site lab testing, ensures that these waste streams are safely disposed of in compliance with all regulations.
Our landfills aren't just disposal sites—they are engineering marvels. Sustainability is at the forefront of everything we do at our landfills. They are essential community assets, allowing us to manage our customers’ waste while prioritizing the communities we serve and the environment.
