How many landfills have closed

When ammonia makes its way into ecosystems it is nitrified to produce nitrate. This nitrate can then cause eutrophication, or a lack of oxygen due to increased growth of plant life, in nearby water sources.

Along with ammonia, leachate contains toxins such as mercury due to the presence of hazardous materials in landfills. Emissions from landfills pose a threat to the health of those who live and work around landfills. Large landfills, on average, decrease the value of the land adjacent to it by Smaller landfills depress land values less, with around a 2.

Minority and low-income areas are more likely to find themselves home to landfills and hazardous waste sites. These areas have fewer resources to oppose the placement of these facilities. This makes them an easier target for landfill placement than higher income areas.

Every year the amount of waste that avoids the landfill increases due to recycling. Continuing to recycle will keep plastic and other materials out of the biosphere and put them to further use! Avoid single-use plastics. Check out this article on single-use plastics and how to avoid them from the CU Zero Waste team here. One of the most popular uses is to transform a landfill into a community park.

The Trust for Public Land estimates that there could be more than 1, parks sitting on old dump sites. From green spaces to basketball courts to golf courses — the possibilities are endless.

Virginia Beach is home to one of the most famous landfill parks. The capped landfill is now home to man-made mountains, lakes, playgrounds, a skate park and paths for walking and biking.

Former landfills are often repurposed into landfill-gas-to-energy sites. There are also several solar panel fields installed on top of old landfills. New Jersey has taken on multiple solar projects, and uses what was once a municipal dump in Burlington County as a source of renewable energy. However, there are risks to building on a closed landfill that get in the way of adopting this as a widespread practice. As trash decomposes, the ground shifts and can become uneven, which poses a difficult challenge when dealing with intricate solar arrays.

But if an energy provider is willing to take on that challenge, installing solar or wind energy projects is a great way to benefit from these underutilized spaces.

Environmental conservationists are advocating for landfills to be repurposed as wildlife habitats once they are no longer in use.

Before establishing a refuge, groups test different plots of soil on the capped landfill to see if they can support native plant life.

Once those areas are identified, native trees, plants and grasses are brought in and left to grow on their own. Vegetation was planted in the best spots and over a period of two years, increasing numbers of birds and other animals made the area their home. But most recreational reuses require the construction of at least trails if not fields and buildings of various types. Fortunately, waste sits only in "cells" in certain areas of a landfill, and park facilities can be safely constructed over undisturbed areas, leaving the settling sections to support grass and shrubbery.

Therefore, structural foundations can be protected through detailed research and careful planning; the key is to know exactly where the waste is. At New York's Fresh Kills only about 45 percent of the land area was actually used for waste disposal. Despite the many successful individual examples, there is not yet a seamless landfills-to-parks movement in the United States.

Numerous challenges remain—technological, political, and legal—all of which drive up costs. Back when land was more easily available, the impediments were generally not worth taking on.

Now in many cases they are. With a three-pronged effort to design safer waste dumps, to work more closely with community activists, and to ensure protection from legal liabilities, cities will be able to gain much new parkland from abandoned landfills.

For more information about landfill parks, read an article published in Places journal here. In this post, we look at some cities who have created parkland from capped landfills. Search x. Some information, such as publication dates or images, may not have migrated over.

For the latest in smart city news, check out the new Smart Cities Dive site or sign up for our daily newsletter. Author City Parks Blog cityparksblog. New parks can be fashioned out of old garbage dumps. It's not as bad as it sounds.

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