by Morgan Carlson

Created on: September 11, 2009   Last Updated: September 12, 2009

Do landfills work by accomplishing their purpose and the reason they exist? They were established as places where human garbage could be gathered and contained, keeping it organized and separate from the greater environment or the alternative of being stored in one's backyard or another random location.

To the extent of keeping the majority of trash in one place, they work extremely well. In the regards to being ultimately beneficial in their own right, they are becoming increasingly useful in that respect as well.

Landfills and waste dumps are very successful as containers for humanity's garbage and unneeded items, but are often regarded with great contempt and ill feelings. Often thought as blemishes or sores on otherwise useful land, they seem only to grow larger and multiply as human populations expand.

Even with the advent of recycling, the vast quantities of otherwise recyclable goods still find their way to the dumps, as disposing these items as trash is far easier than sorting it and finding willing recycling centers or deposit bins. It seems that even with a few people making the effort of using the recycling practices, most recyclables will just continue to be buried and lost to the landfills.

However, those knowledgeable to the evolving technologies don't frown upon this process, but smile, labeling all landfills as the gold mines of the future.

While not exactly gold that will come of the landfills, there is little doubt that trash of the past will be treasure of the future. Already, there are special trucks that go into select landfills and scoop up a load, run the trash through conveyor belts and scan the contents for recyclables, funnel the good into containers, and deposit the unusable waste and organic matter into new piles.

Sometimes these organic waste piles are used with bacteria and heat to produce methane - a natural byproduct of a lot of landfills because of decomposition - in order to use the methane as fuel. This fuel is burned to heat water, which in turn creates steam that runs through turbines to produce electricity.

The use of methane to create electricity is not the only benefit that comes from the process. The first is that it stops the methane from entering the atmosphere, as methane is a more serious greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. The second is that besides the electricity, waste heat from the burning process and steam is used to heat homes in the nearby vicinity.

In this way, the landfill has become both a power plant and a means of providing warmth to those who need it in the winter. Better yet, unlike fossil fuels, so long as there is a population that produces organic wastes, this system can continue to operate.

Unfortunately for now, even though the recyclables and organic wastes are covered in uses, there are still other materials that cannot be directly recycled and still pile up in sections of the landfill. Rubber tires, for one, can be used to make other things after shredding them, but as there are so many, that isn't as practical a solution.

Other things, such as ceramics, plastic bags, and more, are all worries. But once the technology for recycling and alternative re-using improves, landfills will remain the perfect storage facilities to preserve these important treasures to be.

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