These days, recycling and upcycling are leading the environmental trends and duty and they both are concerning “waste”. Then, how is the waste that we produce disposed of? There are several options for the waste’s destination—recycling, landfills, composting, and burning. 

However, the problems caused by landfills are also generating many problems for our earth. Landfills are simply places that bury waste. You might have seen the figure of landfill often on many media platforms or TV news. As they look at the images, they are fatal to the earth, especially when it comes to the biosystems. 

South Korea is one of the countries that are struggling the most with landfills. The relatively small limited spot compared to the population—about 50 million— is the main element of this problem. There are about 200 landfills in South Korea and it is estimated that 47% of them would be saturated by 2031. Although the ratio of landfills in waste management is only about 13%, — The average ratio using landfills in OECD countries is 42.1% — we can’t ignore the problems caused by those landfills. 

When the waste is buried in landfills, the waste decays and yields massive amounts of pollutants.  Leachate is a liquid pollutant with rainwater occurring when the waste is being decomposed. Leachate is percolated into the groundwater and it is very harmful because of its toxin and pollutants inside. However, in Korea, it is getting better because of the development of a purification system that pumps out the leachate and sends it for purification with biological and chemical processes. Gas is also produced during the waste decomposition process. Through the process of decomposition, LFG —mixed with carbon dioxide and methane— is created which would harm the air and many organisms.  

Moreover, landfills usually exacerbate the conflict in the local community in South Korea. Since these spots are filled with trash, they have disgusting smells and would affect the surrounding area with many insects and many kinds of pollutants. About a few decades ago, there were some landfills in Seoul, however, the population had increased exponentially in Seoul and the government suggested the idea of shifting those landfills to other metropolitan areas instead of Seoul. Through this process, obviously, there are so many disagreements for this decision that this decision is just pawning off the waste to the other cities. This precedent is just a broad and representative instance. There are many small and big disputes between the local communities toward the landfills. 

To alleviate these environmental problems, many methods are introduced that lead to forming an eco-friendly cycle even a little. If there are many advanced technologies for recycling those wastes, however,  it affects the outside range of the environment and also it still contaminates the earth since we can’t entirely exterminate the pollutant generated from the landfills. Other than any developed means, it is the most important to ‘reduce’ the waste for landfill problems. If then, those local or environmental problems would disappear gradually. 

<image credit: HWH environmental>