{"id":797532,"date":"2019-07-11T11:15:26","date_gmt":"2019-07-11T17:15:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=368663"},"modified":"2019-07-11T11:15:26","modified_gmt":"2019-07-11T17:15:26","slug":"ask-eartha-does-stuff-break-down-in-a-landfill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/ask-eartha-does-stuff-break-down-in-a-landfill\/","title":{"rendered":"Ask Eartha: Does stuff break down in a landfill?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Eartha,<\/em><\/p>\n

I have a friend who tells me I should compost my food waste. But doesn\u2019t the food I throw away break down in the landfill anyway?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014 Maggie, Keystone<\/em><\/p>\n

You\u2019re not alone in thinking it\u2019s beneficial for items to break down in landfills.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s talk about some landfill basics and what causes biodegradable materials to, well, biodegrade.<\/p>\n

Landfill archaeology<\/strong><\/p>\n

Take a moment and imagine you\u2019re a banana peel. Torn away from the fruit you once protected, you\u2019ve just made your way to the local landfill. What happens next?<\/p>\n

Trash isn\u2019t spread across the entire landfill space all at once. Smaller openings, called cells, are filled one at a time. When garbage trucks arrive at the landfill, they empty their loads into the active cell. Space is a precious commodity in a landfill \u2014 the more space there is, the longer the landfill lasts \u2014 so the trash is compacted by heavy machinery. And it\u2019s covered with a layer of soil every day.<\/p>\n

You, bruised little banana peel, have had quite the day. A huge tractor has run back and forth over you so many times you\u2019ve lost count. You\u2019re squished by all the garbage around you. And now, you\u2019re covered in a layer of soil. There\u2019s not a lot of air, there\u2019s certainly no sunlight, and there\u2019s little moisture.<\/p>\n

This is not an ideal environment for biodegradation, and that\u2019s exactly how landfills are supposed to work. Landfills are designed to bury trash \u2013 not to break it down. In fact, excavations of landfills have uncovered newspapers still legible after 40 years, 25-year-old heads of lettuce in near pristine condition, and decades-old packs of hot dogs ready for the grill.<\/p>\n

Anaerobic vs. aerobic decomposition<\/strong><\/p>\n

Time for a little science lesson. Composting, the process of turning organic material into nutrient-rich soil, relies on aerobic decomposition. That means the little microbes that eat your food waste need oxygen to survive. Aerobic decomposition happens anywhere oxygen is present: on the forest floor or in a backyard compost pile.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s not a lot of oxygen in a landfill, so if you\u2019re throwing food away, it\u2019s not turning into compost. However, there are little critters that don\u2019t need oxygen to survive. These microbes do live in landfills, and when they decompose organic matter, they generate their own waste product: methane.<\/p>\n

Methane, as you might know, is a greenhouse gas. In fact, it actually traps more heat than carbon dioxide. Methane doesn\u2019t last as long in the atmosphere, which is why it\u2019s not talked about as much as carbon dioxide, but it\u2019s still a potent greenhouse gas. And landfills are the third largest human-related source of methane emissions in the United States. All those banana peels add up.<\/p>\n

Now, you might be scratching your head and thinking, \u201cI thought you said things don\u2019t break down in a landfill.\u201d Here\u2019s the thing: While there is some decomposition, there\u2019s not enough moisture in a landfill to completely break anything down. And even if there was, we wouldn\u2019t want that to happen because the process would create more methane.<\/p>\n

Beyond the banana<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just food waste that won\u2019t break down. Think of all the organic things you toss every day: paper towels, coffee cups, tissues, diapers, wooden toothbrushes. We all throw away items made of organic materials. The same goes for bioplastics, or bags and cups made out of corn starch and other plant-based ingredients. Truth is, these are stable in a landfill. You might feel better about buying them because they\u2019re made from renewable resources, but don\u2019t let yourself think they\u2019ll decompose in the landfill.<\/p>\n

So, what does this mean for you? We should all keep our food waste out of the landfill. It makes no sense to let food sit idle in a landfill for decades when it can be recycled into nutrient-rich compost.  <\/p>\n

There\u2019s no need to set up a backyard composting system. The High Country Conservation Center\u2019s Food Scrap Recycling program offers convenient drop-off locations across the county. And thanks to new community funding, the program will be free for residents beginning in August. Drop off up to 10 gallons a week and feel confident that your leftovers won\u2019t be unearthed 50 years from now.<\/p>\n

For more information, check out HighCountryConservation.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ask Eartha Steward is written by the staff at the High Country Conservation Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to waste reduction and resource conservation. Submit questions to Eartha at info@highcountryconservation.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Eartha, I have a friend who tells me I should compost my food waste. But doesn\u2019t the food I throw away break down in the landfill anyway? \u2014 Maggie, Keystone You\u2019re not alone in thinking it\u2019s beneficial for items to break down in landfills. Let\u2019s talk about some landfill basics and what causes biodegradable […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-797532","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-17 20:03:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}