Landfills have a unique history since their extensive use began after World War II to concentrate municipal solid waste. They have transformed from simple piles of hazardous, unsanitary trash into reliable, engineered foundations. Even as the annual rate of trash landfilled per capita rises, the amount of landfills has decreased dramatically from twenty thousand in the 1970’s to the remaining two thousand eight hundred today. This is due to the benefit of the interstate shipment of trash in environmental, ethical and economic perspectives.
Subtitle D of the Resource and Conservation and Recovery Act requires strict environmental protections. These strict laws lead to the replacement of small landfills with expensive, regional mega landfills that can generate enough trash to afford the technology required to conform to the law. The new privately owned landfills therefore, lead to the interstate shipment of trash since landfills across state borders are more accessible for a city than an inner state landfill. This increase of mega landfills is environmentally beneficial since there are fewer landfills, making it easier to regulate under the more strict laws. New landfills also benefit the environment by converting emitted methane to electricity, compressing more trash into the same volume as old landfills, decreasing ocean dumping and reducing urban areas use of incineration. These engineered landfills also provide sloped cells that allow for a controlled collection of leachate, which prevents it from contaminating water sources. There are debates that waste to energy facilities are more efficient, but they ultimately rely on landfills to dump their leftover ash. One major environmental downside to the regional landfills is the pollution from auto emissions, since trash can be collected from hundreds of miles away.
Interstate shipment of trash receives most