Landfills: Building Them Better
Figure 1. A typical garbage landfill.Copyright 2004 Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052-6399 USA. All rights reserved.
Waste disposal has been an ongoing societal problem since medieval times. In this lesson, students learn about the three methods of waste disposal in use by modern communities. They also investigate how engineers design sanitary landfills to prevent leachate from polluting the underlining groundwater.
Engineers develop creative technologies to dispose of the enormous amount of trash produced in the U.S. They design sanitary landfills to prevent groundwater, soil and air pollution. Sanitary landfills have liners to keep contaminants from leaking into underlying groundwater, leachate collection systems that collect and treat the precipitation coming off of the garbage, and capping systems that keep the landfill from releasing harmful gases into the air.
After this lesson, students should be able to:
- Describe advances in waste disposal from a historical context to modern times.
- Explain how landfills can pollute groundwater.
- Describe national regulations involved in sanitary landfill design.
- Explain how engineers are involved in the design of sanitary landfills.