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> Modern dumps can be very environmentally friendly.

Why use dumps at all? Here in Germany dumps are not allowed anymore, instead everything that can not be recycled is being burned; the energy is converted into electricity.

Yes, burning the trash releases CO2 into the atmosphere, but prevents release of the much worse Methane and also protects the ground water.

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As the comment you were responding to noted, new landfills protect the groundwater by completely lining the dumping area and then capture this methane and use it to produce energy. Cleaner burning and less CO2 than simply burning the waste stream because anaerobic bacteria capture a lot of the carbon and the parts of the waste stream that would produce nasty combustion byproducts are contained underground.

Not even that: The Norwegian government plans to connect the garbage incinerator at Klementsrud to a CO2 capture station, pressurize it, and ship it to an abandoned gas field for storage.

And since the capacity of the storage site is so much bigger than the Norwegian domestic production, some of Germany's CO2 will eventually be included as well :-)

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