Landfill in a Sustainable Waste Disposal

Landfill is as old as mankind, and it is the most common and popular waste disposal globally; it is very likely to be the mostly used method for some time to come despite efforts to recycle and re-use waste materials. However, in many respects landfilling has been highly criticised by stakeholders and regarded as the opposite of sustainability because of the health hazard and environmental burden it constitutes. The efficiency of landfilling rests on technical, economic, and legal framework which seems to be inadequate in many countries. The essence of sustainable landfill is to ensure that the environmental parameters e.g., methane, leachate, etc. are reduced to acceptable risk level (inert waste) in order to prevent damage to humans and the environment. Many European countries in compliance with 2008/98/EC along with 94/62/EC Directive have been able to reduce heavy reliance on the landfill; however, this has raised the use of other waste management methods e.g., Sweden share of landfill disposal is 1% (Table I) this increases dependent on other methods of waste disposal e.g., incineration, 49%, waste treated biologically, 14% in 2011. Nevertheless, landfilling will still be required to dispose of waste which cannot be recycled or treated in other ways.