Dangers of Landfills to Our Environment

Wherever humans live, their waste accumulates at the curb in little piles of solid pollution. These end up at mountainous regional landfills that communities tuck away as best as they can. Though federal regulations clamped down on landfill requirements in the later decades of the 20th century, further prohibiting toxic wastes from all but the most safeguarded landfills, several health concerns remain for environmental scientists and engineers to remedy at all garbage collection sites.

Leaching

• The threat of toxic substances, including heavy metals and industrial defoliants, leaching into area waterways and aquifers has decreased since more stringent federal regulations were passed in 1976, according to Keep America Beautiful. This more strictly enforces the proper construction and maintenance of the country's more than 3,000 current landfills; however, about 10,000 decommissioned city landfills pepper the country too, many filled with dangerous substances that were dumped, conscience-free, before stricter regulations were enacted.

Methane

• The composting waste materials in landfills often produce dangerously concentrated levels of toxic gases, the most prevalent of which is methane, which evaporates into the atmosphere, causing symptoms in humans similar to oxygen deprivation or asphyxiation. This is especially true for humans residing or working near or on top of old landfills that have been capped for redevelopment. The symptoms, from more prevalent to more dangerous, include: increased pulse, lack of coordination, emotion disturbances, fatigue, shortness of breath, nausea, convulsions, respiratory failure and death. The EPA administers a Landfill Methane Outreach Program to educate developers and municipal officials about recycling this potentially dangerous gas into fuel.

No Leak-Proof Barriers

• Though all landfill operations founded after 1976 require a plastic buffer screening about 1/10 inch thick to be laid before any waste materials can be dumped there, a 2000 report by the company Leak Location Services reported that "82 percent of surveyed landfill cells had leaks while 41 percent had a leak area of more than one square foot." Not only that, but many of the required monitoring wells near landfills have been revealed to expose toxic leaching only some of the time.

Other Dangers

• The health risks associated with landfills, particularly the old unregulated variety, aren't a secret. According to Indiana University Northwest, the following the illnesses and growth inhibitors have been attributed to human proximity to landfills: shorter height among children who grew up near the infamous Love Canal dump in New York; lower birth weight; increased infant heart defects; enlargement and malfunctioning of the liver; respiratory problems, neurological conditions, pancreatic cancer and dermatitis.