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How Landfills Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from house stuff
0:04
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
0:12
Speaker 1: Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there,
0:16
Speaker 1: and this is stuff you should know. Hi. How's it going.
0:22
Speaker 1: It's great? Good, Good to yourself. I found this topic
0:29
Speaker 1: and I was starting to tell you before how interesting
0:31
Speaker 1: I thought it wasn't. Yeah, you went it's awesome. I
0:35
Speaker 1: was like, stop, it's gold. So now I'm going to
0:38
Speaker 1: say it. It's awesome. And landfills, the concept of a landfill,
0:44
Speaker 1: even though it ain't perfect, it's pretty neat. Yeah. And
0:49
Speaker 1: even though we need to reduce the amount of trash,
0:51
Speaker 1: especially Americans produce. Yeah, um, there is still going to
0:55
Speaker 1: be trash in the world and it needs to be
0:57
Speaker 1: dealt with. And this is way better than the old days. Uh,
1:03
Speaker 1: when in like pre nineteen thirty New York City they
1:07
Speaker 1: would dump their garbage in the ocean. And then between
1:10
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty and we still do that. You realize New
1:14
Speaker 1: York City doesn't dump it right in the Atlantic Ocean, No,
1:16
Speaker 1: but a lot of garbage is dumped in the ocean. Yeah. Well,
1:19
Speaker 1: we talked about the Great Pacific garbage back um. And
1:22
Speaker 1: then between the nineteen thirties and the nineteen seventies they
1:25
Speaker 1: had what they called dumps, which is a big hole
1:28
Speaker 1: in the ground covered in rats and birds, and then
1:31
Speaker 1: you would just dump garbage to leach into everything. Yes,
1:36
Speaker 1: which is messed up. And the e p A comes
1:39
Speaker 1: along and I think the sixties, definitely the seventies, and
1:41
Speaker 1: was like, uh, we need to do something better about this.
1:46
Speaker 1: But so the the idea of the landfill was born
1:51
Speaker 1: in about the sixties, I believe. Well, well, the first
1:54
Speaker 1: modern sanitary landfill was ninety seven and Fries. Now, okay,
1:58
Speaker 1: that's right, and it's like a national his or place
2:00
Speaker 1: or something, because it kind of kicked off the whole thing.
2:02
Speaker 1: But it wasn't until the sixties and seventies that they
2:06
Speaker 1: started passing law saying that, like every state really needs
2:08
Speaker 1: to start doing the same thing. Right, And like you
2:11
Speaker 1: said before that they just dumped their trash in a pit,
2:14
Speaker 1: which people have been doing for millennia at least. Um.
2:18
Speaker 1: They were burning their trash also, and it sounds mind
2:22
Speaker 1: bogglingly awful and it is, especially from environmental standpoint, but
2:26
Speaker 1: they didn't have the trash problem that we have now
2:30
Speaker 1: in the sixties. Since the nineties sixties are trash generation,
2:36
Speaker 1: municipal solid waste generation has um doubled, tripled, tripled, And
2:44
Speaker 1: I was like, why is that? What's going on? Apparently
2:47
Speaker 1: it's the advent of cheap packaging, Before styrofoam packaging, before plastic,
2:53
Speaker 1: before aluminum cans, that everybody just threw away. Everything was
2:57
Speaker 1: wrapped in a T shirt that you could wear exactly,
2:59
Speaker 1: And like when you weren't carrying around a slab of
3:02
Speaker 1: meat in the T shirt from the butcher to your house,
3:04
Speaker 1: you wore your T shirt so you reused it, right, No,
3:08
Speaker 1: but no, you would you would have maybe like, um,
3:11
Speaker 1: do you remember when Sam the butcher brought Alice the
3:15
Speaker 1: meat BC Boys reference about um Stone driving around with
3:20
Speaker 1: two which is I guess a really weird way of
3:25
Speaker 1: putting in his barefoot well that didn't rhyme bald feet anyway.
3:30
Speaker 1: He would bring it to her wrapped in like white
3:32
Speaker 1: butcher's paper, and she would throw it away and it
3:36
Speaker 1: would really not take up much space to the dump.
3:38
Speaker 1: It would decompose. It wasn't like styrofoam, which lasts for
3:42
Speaker 1: fifty thou years, right, And so starting about packaging, especially
3:50
Speaker 1: very non biodegradable packaging, took off like a rocket. Yeah
3:54
Speaker 1: you could still go to the butcher though now you
3:57
Speaker 1: can and you get it in paper, but you go
3:59
Speaker 1: to that big chain grocery store and it's going to
4:01
Speaker 1: be plastic and starmer foam. So between nineteen are packaging
4:07
Speaker 1: waste increased. That meant that we had to do something.
4:12
Speaker 1: We had a lot more trash and we had to
4:15
Speaker 1: take care of this trash and ways that we had before.
4:18
Speaker 1: And so the modern landfill based on that Fresno model
4:23
Speaker 1: uh boomed And fortunately that's right. But even now they're
4:27
Speaker 1: finding we went too far in one direction. Now we
4:32
Speaker 1: need to adjust it, massage it a little bit, refine it.
4:35
Speaker 1: And we were we were coming up with a new
4:37
Speaker 1: generation of landfills. That's right. So, uh, if you're talking
4:41
Speaker 1: about a landfill, the goal of a landfill is not
4:45
Speaker 1: to compost trash. And a lot of people probably don't
4:48
Speaker 1: know this. It's not to compost trash such that it
4:51
Speaker 1: breaks down super quickly uh and biodegrades. It is the
4:55
Speaker 1: opposite of that. It is to keep it as dry
4:57
Speaker 1: as possible in an air tight and and just bury
5:01
Speaker 1: it lock it away from the surrounding world. That's right.
5:05
Speaker 1: And so that's what a landfill is, a sanitary landfill,
5:08
Speaker 1: municipal solid waste or MSW landfill. Um, they isolate the
5:13
Speaker 1: trash from the environment. They don't just dump it on
5:16
Speaker 1: the dirt and let things leach in. And this thus
5:19
Speaker 1: begins the landfill podcasts. There are a lot of components
5:23
Speaker 1: to that, but that's along and short of it. It's true.
5:25
Speaker 1: And um what what that's called. The whole idea behind
5:30
Speaker 1: that landfill that was in reaction to that's one dry
5:36
Speaker 1: tomb is the industry lingo for it. It's and it
5:41
Speaker 1: it was created in reaction to trash just being allowed
5:45
Speaker 1: to seep into the ground water and methane to just
5:49
Speaker 1: leak out into the air blow up. Apparently houses that
5:53
Speaker 1: have utility pipes that pass by old landfills, methane will
5:57
Speaker 1: get into those utility pipes and like get in mixed
6:01
Speaker 1: in with the electricity and when you go to plug
6:03
Speaker 1: in your toaster and it sparks kaboom. Really, yes, it's
6:06
Speaker 1: a problem with old landfills because they were all idiots
6:10
Speaker 1: with trash like up until the sixties, seventies, eighties, UM
6:16
Speaker 1: and even still we have a big problem with trash,
6:21
Speaker 1: but nothing like it was before. As far as taking
6:23
Speaker 1: care of it, is starting to really get a handle
6:25
Speaker 1: on it. Americans produce four point six pounds of trash
6:29
Speaker 1: per day per person. Yeah, and you know what's crazy
6:32
Speaker 1: is you think, well, America's probably like as bad as
6:34
Speaker 1: it gets. Know, the UK is America is like in
6:37
Speaker 1: the middle roughly for trash generation, and the UK is
6:42
Speaker 1: the worst. They produced per capita, they produced the most,
6:48
Speaker 1: and um, they also throw away the most. They have
6:50
Speaker 1: the lowest recovery rate. Um, although it's gone up. I
6:54
Speaker 1: believe I think they had like some sort of national
6:56
Speaker 1: initiative because it says here that it won up from
7:00
Speaker 1: thirty one percent recovery rate, which is like recycling and
7:04
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, um, basically diverting it from the landfill.
7:10
Speaker 1: So it's actually better than America as far as the
7:12
Speaker 1: resource recovery rate goes. Canada is the worst. I'm sorry,
7:15
Speaker 1: Canada is the worst. Yeah, that's hard to believe. I
7:17
Speaker 1: would think so too, but it's true. The standout is Germany.
7:22
Speaker 1: Germany produces way more trash per person than any other
7:26
Speaker 1: country per capita, but they also have the highest recovery
7:29
Speaker 1: rate at like almost of their trash gets diverted from
7:35
Speaker 1: the landfill. That's amazing, Actually that's efficient. What what's the
7:38
Speaker 1: American number on that diversion? It hovers about a third
7:43
Speaker 1: for at least a couple of decades, now, maybe three decades,
7:47
Speaker 1: you could say Americans diverted about they diverted about a
7:51
Speaker 1: third of their trash from the landfill. You'd like to
7:54
Speaker 1: see that number get better in three decades for sure,
7:57
Speaker 1: and it's always hovers around thirty three, and uh, it
8:01
Speaker 1: should be a lot better than that. You know. That
8:03
Speaker 1: sounds like to me, whoever is in charge of doing
8:06
Speaker 1: that study is just like, let's just use last numbers.
8:09
Speaker 1: We can all live with that, right, all right. So
8:12
Speaker 1: if you want to landfill in your municipality, um, you're
8:17
Speaker 1: going to have to start with a proposal by saying.
8:19
Speaker 1: You can't just go start Yeah, you gotta look around
8:22
Speaker 1: and say we need to landfill everybody. So let's uh
8:27
Speaker 1: do an environmental impact study and let's let's find an area.
8:31
Speaker 1: Let's find a lot of acreage. Um. Because I think
8:35
Speaker 1: they use the North Wake County Landfill in Raleigh, North
8:39
Speaker 1: Carolina as a their go to example, in this article,
8:41
Speaker 1: so our how stuff work started two and thirty acres
8:44
Speaker 1: of land, about seventy acres of which is the actual landfill.
8:48
Speaker 1: So you're gonna need a lot of land, and you're
8:49
Speaker 1: gonna have to do an environmental impact study to determine
8:53
Speaker 1: a lot of things. How much land do you have, Yeah,
8:57
Speaker 1: if there's enough of it, sure? Um. What type of
9:00
Speaker 1: soil you have and what bedrock is underneath it? Very important? Um.
9:05
Speaker 1: How water flows over the surface of the site. Yeah,
9:08
Speaker 1: does it flow right down into the river? Does it
9:10
Speaker 1: perfully right right exactly? Um? And then the uh, the
9:14
Speaker 1: impact it's going to have on local wildlife. Sure. And
9:17
Speaker 1: if it's an historic site, like an archaeological site, yeah,
9:21
Speaker 1: you don't want to landfill on an archaeological site. What's
9:23
Speaker 1: funny is if you, um, if you go back and
9:26
Speaker 1: look at the Fresh Kills landfill, which is one of
9:28
Speaker 1: the biggest in the world New York, right, Yeah, and
9:32
Speaker 1: it wasn't even the only one for New York. Yes,
9:35
Speaker 1: And the guy who created the high line, James Corner,
9:40
Speaker 1: is um creating a park there out of it, like
9:42
Speaker 1: a massive, massive park. Interesting. I think like three times
9:46
Speaker 1: the size of Central Park are they calling it cancer Park.
9:50
Speaker 1: I think they're avoiding that. Okay, I don't remember what
9:53
Speaker 1: it's called. I wrote a really interesting New York Magazine
9:55
Speaker 1: article about it, though. It really well written and clever
9:59
Speaker 1: um where it's basically like, that's awesome, that's awesome, this
10:01
Speaker 1: guy's got this great vision. And then but it's a landfill.
10:05
Speaker 1: You know, I'm sure at the end of the day,
10:07
Speaker 1: it's still buried garbage exactly. Um. Alright, So when we
10:11
Speaker 1: talked about the bedrock, that's really important because if you have,
10:15
Speaker 1: what would you really want to try and prevent when
10:16
Speaker 1: you're building a landfill or operating landfill is um leakage
10:21
Speaker 1: and seepage. That was like the that was the big
10:23
Speaker 1: thing when the e PA came along and started saying like,
10:26
Speaker 1: you can't just bare your trash anywhere there's groundwater, dummies,
10:30
Speaker 1: and like, as trash decomposes, it's not just like old
10:34
Speaker 1: coca cola and banana peals. When those things break down
10:36
Speaker 1: instead of mixing together, some really horrific stuff like ammonia
10:40
Speaker 1: gets produced and that gets into the groundwater, and all
10:43
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you're drinking ammonia. That's bad for you. Yeah,
10:47
Speaker 1: that's called the it's called leech eight is the liquid
10:49
Speaker 1: um or garbage juice is another words that. That's a
10:53
Speaker 1: better way to say it, because that defines it all
10:55
Speaker 1: in one go, right and um, the whole point of
10:58
Speaker 1: the of the dry tomb in fill was to do
11:01
Speaker 1: everything you could to prevent this garbage that you're burying
11:06
Speaker 1: from reaching the the water table. Right, So you study
11:10
Speaker 1: that bedrock. If it's too fractured, it's not gonna work
11:13
Speaker 1: because it's going to seep into that junk. No mines,
11:15
Speaker 1: no quarries, because they probably already have broken through the
11:18
Speaker 1: water table before they were abandoned. That's right. But at
11:20
Speaker 1: the same time, you also need to be able to
11:22
Speaker 1: sink wells in various points, so you can't the bedrock
11:25
Speaker 1: needs to allow for that as well. That's right. Like
11:28
Speaker 1: you're really looking for a specific area when we talked
11:31
Speaker 1: about the water flow, of course, you don't want it
11:33
Speaker 1: flowing near wetlands or any kind of rivers or streams.
11:35
Speaker 1: That's a no brainer. Fresh Kills is an old marsh
11:38
Speaker 1: land that they just filled the marshes and lakes in
11:41
Speaker 1: with garbage. What what did they name it? That is
11:43
Speaker 1: that the area or like that kills is a Dutch
11:46
Speaker 1: word for stream, Okay, because I was about to say
11:48
Speaker 1: that's like the worst name for anything unless it was
11:52
Speaker 1: a butcher. But it really means fresh stream, fresh kills, charcooterie,
11:57
Speaker 1: fresh stream garbage, don't Yeah, that makes sense. Now what
12:01
Speaker 1: does kill mean stream of old Dutch word because you've
12:05
Speaker 1: heard of like bowery means yes, that would be fish stream.
12:11
Speaker 1: That makes a lot more sense. Now fresh kills. I
12:14
Speaker 1: wondered about that for years. Now, you know, all right, so, uh,
12:21
Speaker 1: local wildlife they're going to really study that to see
12:24
Speaker 1: what kind of um You know, it can't be in
12:26
Speaker 1: the area of a migrate my migratory route for birds
12:30
Speaker 1: or like a nesting area a k marsh like Fresh
12:34
Speaker 1: Kills landfill. That's right. And then once you figured all
12:38
Speaker 1: this out and they say, oh wait, wait, you skipped
12:41
Speaker 1: over the historical or archaeological site. Well you already mentioned
12:45
Speaker 1: that like Fresh Kills landfill. Okay, Apparently I think it
12:49
Speaker 1: was stated at all wrong. Huh. Henry David Thoreau said
12:52
Speaker 1: that um arrowheads were the surest crop to dig from
12:55
Speaker 1: the ground at Fresh Kills before it was a landfill. Yeah,
12:59
Speaker 1: so our theological site wet land and very close to UM.
13:04
Speaker 1: The ground water it's seeping right into it. Unbelievable. UM.
13:09
Speaker 1: And I believe there was a large bunny rabbit population
13:13
Speaker 1: that they just dumped it right on top of UM. So,
13:17
Speaker 1: once you figured it out, this is not fresh skills,
13:20
Speaker 1: is actually a great spot. You're gonna get your permits,
13:22
Speaker 1: you're gonna raise your money. Um. This one in North
13:25
Speaker 1: Carolina costs about nineteen million to build cheap. That seems
13:28
Speaker 1: a little cheap, but I don't think that one's brand new. Yeah,
13:32
Speaker 1: that's probably from the nineties. And then you probably have
13:35
Speaker 1: a public vote because they're probably gonna be using public
13:37
Speaker 1: dollars and no one will know that vote takes place,
13:41
Speaker 1: and you're gonna get a landfill built. Yeah, they just
13:46
Speaker 1: build it in the night. All right. So let's take
13:49
Speaker 1: a little break here and we will talk about building
13:52
Speaker 1: that landfill right for this all right, So you've got
14:12
Speaker 1: your permits, you've got your money raised, it's time to
14:16
Speaker 1: build a landfill. Yeah, you've shouted down the old guy
14:19
Speaker 1: at the Board of Commissioners meeting, who objects, old man?
14:24
Speaker 1: McLean the tree hugger. Let's recycle all our garbage, crack pot.
14:32
Speaker 1: So we will list the basic parts of the landfill
14:35
Speaker 1: and then go over them in detail. Hows that sound
14:38
Speaker 1: It sounds like a bulleted list. You've got the bottom
14:41
Speaker 1: liner system, You've got the cells, you've got the storm
14:44
Speaker 1: water drainage, you've got the leech eight collection system, ok,
14:48
Speaker 1: garbage juice methane collection system, and you've got the cap
14:52
Speaker 1: the covering boom. Actually, that's the opposite of what you
14:57
Speaker 1: want to happen with the cap covering system. You don't
15:00
Speaker 1: want a kaboom, So start with the bottom liner. Man again,
15:04
Speaker 1: this is the original purpose of all landfills that are
15:08
Speaker 1: in use today, unless they're bioreactor, although it's it's part
15:13
Speaker 1: of it. But this dry tomb landfill, uh, it's the
15:18
Speaker 1: main part is the bottom liner. So they use a
15:21
Speaker 1: very thick like um sometimes a hundred million millimeter thick,
15:27
Speaker 1: very sturdy like polyethylene liner synthetic plastic that they line
15:32
Speaker 1: the whole place with, puncture resistant, strong, able to withstand
15:37
Speaker 1: a lot of trash being dumped on it. And just
15:39
Speaker 1: to be a certain, they'll often use some sort of
15:42
Speaker 1: like um fabric matt that they'll lay down first and
15:46
Speaker 1: then put the the the liner on and then put
15:50
Speaker 1: another mat on top of that to help prevent it
15:54
Speaker 1: from being punctured by rocks or garbage. Rocks below or
15:57
Speaker 1: garbage above. Everything's trying to puncture of this mat. Yeah,
16:01
Speaker 1: it's a moisture barrier. Right, But that liner is the
16:03
Speaker 1: main component, the the initial component of the landfill, that's right. Uh. Next,
16:08
Speaker 1: we have our cell, and a cell is basically the garbage. Yeah,
16:14
Speaker 1: it's the day's garbage that you dump in there. Um,
16:17
Speaker 1: you compacted airspace is is key. That's where the more
16:22
Speaker 1: airspace you have, the more trash you can bury. So
16:25
Speaker 1: they want to keep it as compact as possible. And
16:27
Speaker 1: they do this by rolling over it with bulldozers and
16:30
Speaker 1: flatteners and rollers and graters and they smush it down.
16:34
Speaker 1: And a cell is um, it's a it's a it's
16:38
Speaker 1: a hole in the ground. Apparently in the North Carolina
16:42
Speaker 1: landfill that House Stuff Works went to back in the day.
16:45
Speaker 1: A cell is fifty ft long, fifty ft wide, fourteen
16:48
Speaker 1: ft deep yep. And all the trash is put in there.
16:51
Speaker 1: Like you said, there's heavy equipment that rolls over and
16:53
Speaker 1: compacts it. And did you read the Atlantic um article
16:57
Speaker 1: I sent to you about Pointe Hills. Yes, they said
17:01
Speaker 1: that there's an added benefit of compacting trash not just
17:04
Speaker 1: doesn't take up less space, it also kills about the
17:08
Speaker 1: rats in there. Oh good. And then at the end
17:12
Speaker 1: of the day, when the cell is filled, they cover
17:15
Speaker 1: it over with about six inches of dirt that they
17:18
Speaker 1: then compact that kills the other of rats. That's where
17:21
Speaker 1: the other half and that makes that type of landfill
17:24
Speaker 1: what's called the sanitary landfill, which mean rat free, because
17:29
Speaker 1: they're all dead, they're squished or they're suffocated by this
17:33
Speaker 1: process of compacting and covering over. And the by covering
17:38
Speaker 1: over this stuff every day, you protected from being blown
17:40
Speaker 1: away by the wind, by being carried away from by
17:42
Speaker 1: the rain. You protected from being dug up by coyotes
17:46
Speaker 1: or trash scavengers. Right, um, And so that's what makes
17:50
Speaker 1: it a sanitary dry tomb landfill is what we've described
17:55
Speaker 1: so far. That's right. And to get this thing as
17:58
Speaker 1: compact as possible, they're gonna weed out things like that
18:00
Speaker 1: huge roll of carpet that you took out of your
18:03
Speaker 1: uh nineteen seventies bedroom, or that mattress that has a
18:07
Speaker 1: you know, brown stained like looks like the map of
18:10
Speaker 1: Asia from the sixteen hundreds, because you raised that one
18:14
Speaker 1: lady from Hell, raiser from the dead. Yeah, so they're
18:17
Speaker 1: gonna chake out all that stuff and make it um
18:20
Speaker 1: you know, all the yard ways to make it as
18:21
Speaker 1: compactable as possible, and then um that is compacted at
18:25
Speaker 1: a rate depending on where you are, about fift pounds
18:28
Speaker 1: per cubic yard. Yes, so boom, flat dirt is over
18:32
Speaker 1: it now and now we need to worry about drainage. Yeah. Basically,
18:37
Speaker 1: once you created that cell, you've just completed a portion
18:40
Speaker 1: of the landfill, right, Yes, for the day, um, one
18:43
Speaker 1: day's trash. It's so weird, it's like yours Tuesday's whole
18:48
Speaker 1: five days a year. And those well, those UM the
18:52
Speaker 1: Hills people in that Atlantic article, we're saying that they
18:56
Speaker 1: in retrospect figured out that they could have predicted the
18:58
Speaker 1: economic crisis. Interesting because about a little less than a
19:02
Speaker 1: year before it happened, the UM they would fill up
19:06
Speaker 1: their days cell by like one pm and closed. Now
19:10
Speaker 1: they stay up until five and it's not even necessarily full.
19:13
Speaker 1: So they know it's like a huge downturn in building
19:16
Speaker 1: materials and consumer waste. UM. Like a year or two
19:21
Speaker 1: before the actual crisis happened before they collapse. Well, you
19:24
Speaker 1: know what the old saying, if you want to know
19:27
Speaker 1: the state of the country's economics, go to a landfill.
19:31
Speaker 1: It's a good thing. That's what I think. Jimmy Carter
19:33
Speaker 1: first said that. So you don't want liquids in that
19:39
Speaker 1: solid waste as much as possible. So they test the
19:41
Speaker 1: solid waste for liquids, and um, if it's not liquid,
19:46
Speaker 1: then it's fine to go in the hole, right, So
19:48
Speaker 1: they put that in there. And the other way that
19:50
Speaker 1: they want to keep liquids out. And again, what they're
19:52
Speaker 1: doing is trying to prevent garbage juice from forming. Is
19:55
Speaker 1: to have storm raw storm, water runoff, drainage going on.
20:01
Speaker 1: So all of the first of all, you never want
20:03
Speaker 1: a flat landfill. Ever, you want to mount it at
20:07
Speaker 1: least slightly. You never want a plateau um and so
20:13
Speaker 1: you want the water to run off, and then when
20:14
Speaker 1: it runs off, you want to collect it into pipes.
20:16
Speaker 1: You want to basically create an eves system like you
20:19
Speaker 1: have on the roof of your house and then shoot
20:21
Speaker 1: it all down to some concrete gulches or French trains
20:25
Speaker 1: at your house. Roos shepperls what else uh, gutters, yeah,
20:32
Speaker 1: habit dasher right, um, and all that goes to a
20:37
Speaker 1: collection pond. That's right. Uh, this is not the kind
20:40
Speaker 1: of thing you want to swim in. What they wait
20:43
Speaker 1: for there is for um the suspended particles to kind
20:46
Speaker 1: of settle on the bottom, and then they will test
20:49
Speaker 1: the water for those the garbage juice, and depending on
20:53
Speaker 1: how nasty it is and riddled with chemicals, they'll go
20:58
Speaker 1: from there. They may um treat like regular wastewater. Well,
21:01
Speaker 1: that depends, like if they if just the storm water
21:05
Speaker 1: shows some leech, they'll send it to a leech a
21:07
Speaker 1: collection pond. If it's if it turns out to just
21:10
Speaker 1: be normal stormwater, then they'll let it flow out of there.
21:14
Speaker 1: That's trying to like whatever river or whatever. And sometimes
21:17
Speaker 1: it's gravity. Sometimes they use a pump, depends on the
21:20
Speaker 1: lay of the land. But if it's leach, they have
21:22
Speaker 1: a separate collect collection system for leech. A yes, which
21:26
Speaker 1: is um basically perforated pipes that are running through the
21:30
Speaker 1: cells and the leach. It is gonna happen, like they
21:33
Speaker 1: try and prevent it as much as possible, but there
21:36
Speaker 1: is no hole in the ground where you're not gonna
21:37
Speaker 1: have any garbage juice right exactly. Um, So they collect
21:41
Speaker 1: that garbage juice as it's forming, and they run it
21:43
Speaker 1: out to a separate collection pond that's the leech a
21:46
Speaker 1: collection pond. And if you don't want to swim in
21:48
Speaker 1: the stormwater collection pond, like you don't even want to
21:50
Speaker 1: look at the leech collection pump. So again, they let
21:54
Speaker 1: the particles settle, they test the concentration of the leech
21:58
Speaker 1: a in the pond, and then they send it either
22:00
Speaker 1: to uh an on site UH water remediation system like
22:05
Speaker 1: a wastewater plant, yeah, or else they send it to
22:08
Speaker 1: like the local city or county wastewater plant for treatment. Yeah. Boy,
22:12
Speaker 1: we gotta do one in wastewater treatment. At some point.
22:14
Speaker 1: You got to talk about fascinating. You poop in the
22:18
Speaker 1: water and eventually you water. It's pretty remarkable of what
22:23
Speaker 1: we've learned to do. Uh, you know yep. So uh.
22:28
Speaker 1: The other big thing that we mentioned earlier was methane,
22:30
Speaker 1: and that is a byproduct that's a gaseous byproduct um
22:35
Speaker 1: of anaerobic decomposition. And about fifty of your your gases
22:43
Speaker 1: coming out of this thing, we're gonna be methane about
22:46
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide and they say a little bit of nitrone,
22:48
Speaker 1: little bit oxygen. I guess not even enough to be
22:51
Speaker 1: a percentage point, almost negligible. So methane is um can
22:55
Speaker 1: be dangerous and hazardous, but it can also be very useful.
22:59
Speaker 1: So these days they're finding ways to harness this methane
23:02
Speaker 1: and use it as fuel, right, which is pretty great. Yeah,
23:05
Speaker 1: it is very great. And actually there's a lot of
23:08
Speaker 1: money in it they're finding too, especially if you go
23:10
Speaker 1: to the trouble of building an on site power plant
23:14
Speaker 1: where you just basically extract the methane from the landfill
23:17
Speaker 1: gas l f G is what it's called, and then
23:19
Speaker 1: you burn the methane. You can power, you can create electricity, right,
23:23
Speaker 1: you can power a turbine and boom, there's electricity being produced.
23:26
Speaker 1: And actually at Fresh Kills, New York City gets ten
23:29
Speaker 1: million bucks a year from a company that has exclusive
23:32
Speaker 1: rights to extract the methane from this place. Ten million.
23:36
Speaker 1: That's not something it needs that UM and Lincoln, Nebraska
23:39
Speaker 1: did a pilot study in two thousand and ten and
23:42
Speaker 1: found that they could make about three hundred thousand dollars
23:45
Speaker 1: a year from methane collection from their landfill. So if
23:49
Speaker 1: you're a city that's trying to like figure out ways
23:51
Speaker 1: to at least keep your landfill open methane collection I
23:56
Speaker 1: call my my worst days l f G. Actually when
24:00
Speaker 1: I have landfill gats the worst. Uh. So, then you've
24:06
Speaker 1: got your covering and your or your cap is the
24:08
Speaker 1: final piece of the puzzle here, and um, it depends
24:12
Speaker 1: on what kind of a landfill it is. Generally it's
24:15
Speaker 1: going to be covered with six inches at least of
24:18
Speaker 1: compacted soil and that's to keep you know, rats and
24:21
Speaker 1: stuff out the ones that aren't killed and getting back
24:24
Speaker 1: into the trash. But um, like we said earlier, airspace
24:27
Speaker 1: is key. So like six inches, if they could find
24:30
Speaker 1: a way to make that one inch, that would be
24:33
Speaker 1: much better. And so they've been experimenting with that too,
24:36
Speaker 1: like um, paper or submit emulsions instead that you just
24:39
Speaker 1: spray on top instead of that six inches of soil,
24:43
Speaker 1: it's like a quarter inch. Yeah, And then all of
24:45
Speaker 1: a sudden you have five and three quarters extra inches
24:47
Speaker 1: for trash, extra inches for more trash. That's a lot
24:50
Speaker 1: many which we are right now absolutely uh. And then
24:56
Speaker 1: eventually though, when you h it will have a permanent
24:58
Speaker 1: cap um some sort of poly ethylene cap on top.
25:02
Speaker 1: And so even after it's closed, that points hills Um
25:07
Speaker 1: landfill outside of l A that was the focus of
25:09
Speaker 1: the Atlantic article or fresh kills out in New York
25:13
Speaker 1: when that when it's closed, you don't just walk away
25:16
Speaker 1: from a landfill plant stuff on it. Well, yes, you
25:19
Speaker 1: have to plant stuff on it because when you cover
25:21
Speaker 1: it over with dirt, you want to plant something with um,
25:24
Speaker 1: a low roots system that won't go into the landfill,
25:27
Speaker 1: but we'll still hold the dirt and place to prevent
25:29
Speaker 1: it from a roading. So like grass cut zoo, not trees.
25:33
Speaker 1: I don't want to plant trees. But you also have
25:35
Speaker 1: to stick around and leave some people behind to monitor
25:38
Speaker 1: the groundwater for temperature changes. Change in temperature suggests that
25:44
Speaker 1: it's um. There's leachate that's intruded. Sometimes you can see
25:48
Speaker 1: the leech seeping up through the ground, and that means
25:51
Speaker 1: that there's you need to address an issue. It looks
25:54
Speaker 1: like the Beverly Hillbillies thing where Jed shot and missed
25:58
Speaker 1: that rabbit and instead oil comes up. That's what leech
26:01
Speaker 1: kind of looks like, bubble up. But you have to
26:04
Speaker 1: keep an eye on this place for decades and decades
26:07
Speaker 1: and decades. Yeah, I think they sitting here like thirty years.
26:12
Speaker 1: It needs to be maintained and monitored at least at
26:15
Speaker 1: least I think that's definitely in the line. So we'll
26:17
Speaker 1: talk a little more about operating a landfill and how
26:21
Speaker 1: to well, I guess alternative slam fills is a way
26:25
Speaker 1: to put it right after this. So, Chuck, let's say
26:46
Speaker 1: you are Tommy Landfill and you want to fulfill your
26:51
Speaker 1: birthright and open your own landfill, and you got everything
26:54
Speaker 1: all set. You've got the municipal bonds. Old man, what
26:59
Speaker 1: was it, mc tavish, mcvaine, something like that, mc lane, McClane.
27:03
Speaker 1: He he's been shouted down. You got the place open.
27:06
Speaker 1: How are you going to operate a day to day Well,
27:09
Speaker 1: what you're gonna do is it's gonna be open to
27:12
Speaker 1: a couple of different things. It's gonna be open to
27:14
Speaker 1: the um municipality that collects the trash. Of course, it's
27:18
Speaker 1: gonna be open to demolition companies, construction companies, and many
27:23
Speaker 1: of them, including the one I go to, is open
27:25
Speaker 1: to you and me. Okay, um, So let's say I'm
27:29
Speaker 1: doing work on my house, which I've done, and I
27:31
Speaker 1: end up with a bunch of junk in the back
27:33
Speaker 1: of my pickup truck. I think it's called construction waste. Yes,
27:36
Speaker 1: construction debris, which I try and re use as much
27:38
Speaker 1: as I can, but you still end up with construction debris.
27:41
Speaker 1: Did we do like a green renovation episode once? Yeah?
27:44
Speaker 1: I think so okay, And um, I will drive my
27:48
Speaker 1: truck out there to the landfill into Cabb County and
27:51
Speaker 1: I will drive up onto a platform. Is the first
27:54
Speaker 1: very first thing you do with a it's a way station.
27:56
Speaker 1: Does it make you go up on two wheels and
27:58
Speaker 1: then you drive through the land just wheel that's showing
28:02
Speaker 1: off the stuck car scene. Um. Then you drive up
28:06
Speaker 1: on the way station and they weigh your truck or
28:08
Speaker 1: your car or whatever with full of trash. You go
28:12
Speaker 1: dump it. There's gonna be various stations. Um, there's like
28:15
Speaker 1: a recycling station. There's a here's where yard waste goes,
28:20
Speaker 1: a kissing booth. Uh, there's a dunk tank, you know,
28:24
Speaker 1: the traditional Catholic school carnival um at the one into
28:31
Speaker 1: Capp County. There's actually free mulch and um compost if
28:35
Speaker 1: you want to pick up stuff, which is kind of neat,
28:38
Speaker 1: but then eventually you will be directed to, uh, here
28:41
Speaker 1: is your dump and I pull up my truck, I
28:44
Speaker 1: dump it in a big dumpster, and that dumpster has
28:46
Speaker 1: then taken to the cell. I imagine. I don't follow
28:50
Speaker 1: the route, but that's what's supposed to happen. Does it
28:53
Speaker 1: make that bugs Bunny conveyor belt song? Yeah, someone wrote
28:57
Speaker 1: in and had a song, yeah power If you look
29:01
Speaker 1: up what was that the one that you were thinking, Yes, totally. Um.
29:04
Speaker 1: I can't remember the composer's name, but it was the
29:07
Speaker 1: twentieth century composer who think it is old man. It
29:09
Speaker 1: was something something Quintet. Yeah, I can't remember the guy's name,
29:14
Speaker 1: but anyway, look up to something something Quintet powerhouse, and
29:18
Speaker 1: then I think it starts about almost a minute and
29:20
Speaker 1: a half in. You'll be like, yeah, that's it, d dude,
29:26
Speaker 1: you know I'm talking about Yeah. Absolutely. When I heard it,
29:28
Speaker 1: it was unmistakably looney tunes. So I dump on my garbage, um,
29:34
Speaker 1: and then I drive back out onto another platform and
29:38
Speaker 1: then they rewagh my truck. They do the math and
29:41
Speaker 1: then when they weigh it, um, they charge you a
29:43
Speaker 1: tipping fee, yeah, which is usually a per ton amount right, Yeah,
29:48
Speaker 1: and so you know, it's not that much money. Like
29:50
Speaker 1: I'll have a truck full of junk, go dump it,
29:53
Speaker 1: and then it's like ten or twelve bucks. And of
29:55
Speaker 1: course it depends on how heavy the junk is, but
29:58
Speaker 1: in my case, it was always you know, uh, lightwood
30:02
Speaker 1: and stuff like that that I couldn't use nails. So
30:06
Speaker 1: that's that's basically everything we just described as a dry
30:09
Speaker 1: tomb landfill. Right. But as as UM companies like waste
30:14
Speaker 1: management and local municipalies have figured out, like, hey, there's
30:18
Speaker 1: actually money in this rotting garbage, they've been looking into
30:22
Speaker 1: ways to get more methane out of it. And what
30:25
Speaker 1: they figured out is that you don't want a dry tomb.
30:29
Speaker 1: You want to kind of moist a little wet to
30:32
Speaker 1: thirty percent moisture. Yeah. I was really surprised that this
30:36
Speaker 1: isn't how it's done by now, because you can they said,
30:39
Speaker 1: you know, what could take decades and a dry tomb
30:41
Speaker 1: to break down, you can take just a few years
30:44
Speaker 1: if you just add a little water, just a little
30:46
Speaker 1: bit of water, Like there's already about ten to fifteen
30:48
Speaker 1: percent moisture in a dry tomb, no matter how much
30:51
Speaker 1: you try to keep it out. There's gonna be about
30:53
Speaker 1: ten to fift They figured out that if you add
30:55
Speaker 1: another water, you're going to greatly increase anaerobic um decomposition.
31:03
Speaker 1: And it can be leachated. It's not like they have
31:06
Speaker 1: have spring water exactly. It can be that stormwater you're collecting,
31:09
Speaker 1: it can be leech eate um, it can be gas
31:12
Speaker 1: condensation from the gas that's coming off and and basically
31:16
Speaker 1: what you're doing is you're speeding up that anaerobic decomposition
31:20
Speaker 1: that's already going on. So these things are breaking down
31:23
Speaker 1: that organic stuff, the banana peels and the grass clippings
31:26
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. It's already in there. They're not
31:28
Speaker 1: breaking down the styrofoam, at least not very quickly, so
31:31
Speaker 1: that stuff is still going to be left behind. But
31:34
Speaker 1: that's kind of that burying walk awayte mentality as well. Still,
31:38
Speaker 1: but at least the the density of your m landfill
31:42
Speaker 1: is going to increase tremendously as all that other stuff decomposes,
31:46
Speaker 1: and you're gonna have the added benefit of a lot
31:49
Speaker 1: more methane production. Yeah, and a lot more methane and
31:52
Speaker 1: a lot shorter time spans. So what they've had to do,
31:55
Speaker 1: because this is basically accelerated production, is create collection systems
32:01
Speaker 1: that can handle They can't just throw the old methane
32:04
Speaker 1: collection system in there that's used to collecting slowly, but
32:07
Speaker 1: surely they have to do something collect a lot and
32:09
Speaker 1: a little bit of time. Yeah, because they used to
32:11
Speaker 1: collect the methane in that they would harvest it and
32:14
Speaker 1: then burn it, which is sounds horrible because you're just
32:17
Speaker 1: releasing all that stuff into the atmosphere, but it's better
32:21
Speaker 1: than just vending it. Just vending methane. Methane is a
32:24
Speaker 1: um much more potent greenhouse gas than even like CEO
32:29
Speaker 1: two like by far, So you don't want to just
32:32
Speaker 1: vent that stuff, so you burn it off. But even
32:34
Speaker 1: better is if you're gonna burn it, at least use
32:36
Speaker 1: it to power stuff. So by adding just a little
32:40
Speaker 1: bit of water you can create this. You can accelerate
32:43
Speaker 1: the anaerobic decomposition. And since the anaerobic decomposition is what
32:47
Speaker 1: makes the landfill like a moving, living, evolving pile, once
32:53
Speaker 1: that's done in ten years, you've got all the methane
32:57
Speaker 1: you're gonna get from it, the things not gonna settle anymore,
33:00
Speaker 1: and you can walk away without monitoring it for the
33:02
Speaker 1: next fifty years. Yeah, so the bioreactor model seems like
33:06
Speaker 1: far and away the wave of the future. Right. Um,
33:10
Speaker 1: I guess it's just a matter of like building more
33:12
Speaker 1: of them. Yes, so we got a couple of more
33:15
Speaker 1: things here before we close. For sure. This is very interesting.
33:18
Speaker 1: One Neto thing that I didn't know. I think I
33:20
Speaker 1: knew about Giant Stadium, but I didn't know that. I
33:23
Speaker 1: just heard Jimmy hoff was buried there. Well, you might
33:26
Speaker 1: have just been in the in the landfill. Apparently some
33:30
Speaker 1: sports arenas like Kemiskey in Chicago, Mile Haush Stadium in Denver,
33:33
Speaker 1: Giant Stadium in New Jersey built on landfills because they're cheap,
33:38
Speaker 1: cheap land, and some speculation that it might give athletes cancer. Yeah,
33:44
Speaker 1: apparently there are a lot of Giants players are several
33:48
Speaker 1: um that came down with cancer. That one of the linebackers,
33:51
Speaker 1: Harry Carson, told The New York Times, Um, it makes
33:55
Speaker 1: you wonder what's going on around here, referencing the fact
33:58
Speaker 1: that it was built on an old land hill. Yeah,
34:00
Speaker 1: and apparently there was a game at Comiskey Park where
34:05
Speaker 1: there was a I think a short stop like ran
34:10
Speaker 1: into a piece of metal sticking up from the diamond
34:15
Speaker 1: and like started like kicking away. I didn't realized it
34:17
Speaker 1: was getting bigger and bigger, and the grounds crew came
34:20
Speaker 1: out and investigated, and it was Jimmy Hoffa. It was
34:24
Speaker 1: a copper cuddle from the landfill. They had moved its
34:27
Speaker 1: way up. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, So they had to
34:30
Speaker 1: dig it up and then refill it. Unbelievable. I'm sure
34:33
Speaker 1: that was a lovely break for the fans. Yes, because
34:37
Speaker 1: moving that they needed. They needed a breathere. Uh. I
34:42
Speaker 1: read an article on Slate called go West Garbage can
34:47
Speaker 1: exclamation point, and the main gist of it is, when
34:51
Speaker 1: are we going to run out of space? It's a
34:53
Speaker 1: great question. You can't keep bearing trash right? Um, Apparently
34:57
Speaker 1: you can, because what they're doing now is there there
35:02
Speaker 1: are fewer landfills than ever before. They're making these huge landfills. Yeah.
35:07
Speaker 1: In nineteen in six, there were close to seventy dumps
35:12
Speaker 1: in the US, and by two thousand nine there were
35:14
Speaker 1: just under two thousand. Decline in less than twenty five years,
35:20
Speaker 1: and so essentially what they're creating of these super landfills, um,
35:25
Speaker 1: which is kind of cool, fewer landfills, right, but what's
35:28
Speaker 1: the problem, Um, do you know stinkier landfills? What the
35:35
Speaker 1: problem is is you're now trucking garbage sometimes five miles
35:39
Speaker 1: away to dump in the landfill because your state may
35:42
Speaker 1: not even have one. So then they're looking at you
35:45
Speaker 1: know how much c O two is used to do that? Um? Like,
35:49
Speaker 1: is it really greener to have fewer landfills and truck
35:52
Speaker 1: your garbage on a train or in a truck every day? Uh?
35:56
Speaker 1: And they basically say they don't really know. Which is
36:00
Speaker 1: back to burning everything? Which is more environmentally friendly? Um?
36:03
Speaker 1: In different states? Apparently there's a lot of money in it.
36:06
Speaker 1: Different states have way more room than others. And then
36:10
Speaker 1: some states don't even want that stuff. Of course, in
36:12
Speaker 1: the Northeast, like Massachusetts are like, we don't want landfills
36:16
Speaker 1: in our state, the Rhode Island. Same way they send
36:20
Speaker 1: it to Springfield, they send it to Kentucky. Well, no,
36:23
Speaker 1: remember the commissioner episode he accepted other states to waste. Yeah,
36:28
Speaker 1: that's exactly what's happening. Um. Let me see, Arkansas has
36:32
Speaker 1: enough capacity for more than six hundred years of trash
36:36
Speaker 1: without any more facilities being opened. There you go we'll
36:39
Speaker 1: just send it all to Arkansas. Whereas Rhode Island only
36:42
Speaker 1: has twelve years remaining. New York State only has twenty
36:45
Speaker 1: five years of capacity left. Send it to Arkansas. So
36:48
Speaker 1: that's what they're doing. Um, Kentucky is twenty nine dollars
36:52
Speaker 1: per ton, making about six billion dollars a year. Ohio
36:56
Speaker 1: twenty one billion dollars a year of available land phil
37:00
Speaker 1: space because Ohio knows how to negotiate. That's right, the
37:03
Speaker 1: Buckeye State, that's right. Don't tread on me. That's New
37:07
Speaker 1: Hampshire the Tea Party. I think it's either New Hampshire, Vermont,
37:12
Speaker 1: one of those you know New Hampshires is lived for
37:15
Speaker 1: your die and make their inmates make those license plates. Yeah, no,
37:19
Speaker 1: don't tread on me wasn't a state motto. And I
37:21
Speaker 1: think that was just flag with the cut up snake
37:24
Speaker 1: right that the Tea Party adopted. Remember did they adopt that? Yeah?
37:28
Speaker 1: So yeah, if you see a bumper sticker with one
37:31
Speaker 1: of those flags on it, they're not just like a
37:32
Speaker 1: history buff or anything. Yeah. Or if it says who
37:35
Speaker 1: was John Galt? Yeah that that that'll tell you something
37:38
Speaker 1: about the driver of that vehicle was that a Tom
37:40
Speaker 1: Cruise movie. No John Galt was the main character, and
37:43
Speaker 1: Atlas shrugged, Oh yeah, I ran, I'm thinking of Jack Reacher.
37:48
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about landfills, you can
37:50
Speaker 1: type that word into the search part how stuff works
37:53
Speaker 1: dot com and uh, I said search bar. So it's
37:55
Speaker 1: time for a listener, ma'il. I needna call this very
38:00
Speaker 1: sad email but uplifting at the same time. Hey guys,
38:06
Speaker 1: two weeks ago, my amazing and wonderful father in law,
38:08
Speaker 1: Walter passed away. We had to drop everything, my husband
38:12
Speaker 1: and son and I and fly from Florida to Germany,
38:14
Speaker 1: where he lived. He's been in my world for twenty
38:17
Speaker 1: four and my fifty years. And I was so sad.
38:19
Speaker 1: I felt like I was going to throw up all
38:21
Speaker 1: the time. When we arrived in Germany, walking through the
38:23
Speaker 1: front door of the family home without him there was
38:26
Speaker 1: one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.
38:28
Speaker 1: That was and is devastating. My husband and youngest son
38:31
Speaker 1: and I sat in the dark days for days, mixing
38:35
Speaker 1: the crying mixed with crying and feeling lost. I always
38:38
Speaker 1: listen to podcasts while I run, though, which I do
38:40
Speaker 1: every day, and after ten days of being there in Germany,
38:43
Speaker 1: I finally decided to cue up one of your podcasts
38:46
Speaker 1: while running. It was Blood Types. I laughed for the
38:49
Speaker 1: first time in two weeks out loud. Guys. It was
38:52
Speaker 1: so nice to laugh again, and it really opened the
38:54
Speaker 1: door for me. I realized that we as a family
38:56
Speaker 1: are going through was so tough. But I also started
38:59
Speaker 1: to realize that if I laugh, than I could heal. Uh. Yesterday,
39:03
Speaker 1: my husband and I, still in Germany, decided to go
39:05
Speaker 1: UH to walk to the nursing home where my aunt lives,
39:09
Speaker 1: which is two and a half hours through the forest,
39:11
Speaker 1: up and down hills. I love this family. By the way,
39:15
Speaker 1: walking to the nursing home like that, we of course
39:17
Speaker 1: brought our thirteen year old son, Oliver, who was moaning.
39:20
Speaker 1: After about twenty minutes of walking, I handed into my
39:22
Speaker 1: phone and he listened to UH three Stuff you Should
39:25
Speaker 1: Know podcasts along the way and is now hooked. He
39:28
Speaker 1: loves you, guys. My husband and I had a badly
39:31
Speaker 1: needed quiet, get in touch with nature walk as a result,
39:34
Speaker 1: and we didn't have to listen to our sun moan
39:36
Speaker 1: at all. Uh More, long walks are in his future
39:39
Speaker 1: as long as I have you guys on my phone.
39:41
Speaker 1: And Oliver also asked me along the walk, wait a minute, mom,
39:45
Speaker 1: these guys get paid to do this. When I said yes,
39:49
Speaker 1: I saw a sparkle in his eye. I love this email. Boom,
39:54
Speaker 1: that is from Jennifer and Jennifer. That is awesome. I uh,
39:58
Speaker 1: those mean the most us. Yeah, I mean that was
40:01
Speaker 1: a great top not to email. Great email and those
40:04
Speaker 1: more to it. Even I had to leave out some
40:06
Speaker 1: of it for Lincoln Jennifer right, Jennifer and Oliver her
40:09
Speaker 1: son and she doesn't even anonymous husband anonymous husband on
40:13
Speaker 1: name notes. But yeah, thanks a lot, Jennifer. We appreciate
40:16
Speaker 1: you letting us know that that's a again great email.
40:20
Speaker 1: And uh, if you out there want to let us
40:22
Speaker 1: know how we've helped you or hindered you or even
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