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Comment by lopmotr | Hacker News Reader

I think you're still caught up in the lie about recycling. Part of that lie included indoctrinating people with the belief that landfills were bad. They're not. The US has unlimited space to create landfills and they can now be made so they don't leach chemicals into the water table or erode into the sea. The problem with plastic is it getting into the ocean. It gets into the ocean (from the US) because of failed attempts to recycle it. So put it in landfills where it's harmless.

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I agree, but with the caveats that indescriminate use of landfills (as we have today) is not good, and they are not maintenance-free in future although considering them 'dump and forget' is very attractive. I expect historical landfills being compromised, especially due to increased sea levels and extreme weather events, to become an increasingly common topic in the next few decades.

Sequestration of plastic in landfills seems to be the best option we have right now for plastic waste disposal. Even then, more focus on proper encapsulation before it goes in is needed. Even simple initiatives like EcoBricks (https://www.ecobricks.org/) helps ensure more permanent sequestration in ways that look likely to reduce the risk of eventual environmental damage.

We also need more focus on diversion of materials before landfill. Right now an enourmous amount of compostible organic waste, e-waste, and metals are sent to landfill because nobody is willing to bear the cost of diversion. IMO material disposal cost should be borne by the original producer (see the EU WEEE regulations for a good starter on how this can work). This incentivises sustainable choices from the very start of a goods life cycle, rather than how it currently sits as an afterthought.

Rising sea levels should not be a concern for nearly any landfill, except perhaps those of island nations. Building a few meters above the present sea level will keep you out of the ocean even if everything melts.

If you are not more than a few meters above sea level, then you are probably on valuable coastal lands and should move inland anyway.

But there are many such island nations and the consequences are global - In England and Wales, for example, there are at least 1700 coastal landfills in the coastal flood plain and at least 60 threatened by erosion ( Coastal Landfills, Rising Sea Levels and Shoreline Management: A Challenge for the 21st Century - Nicholls, 2019). Last year a landfill on the south west coast of NZ busted open due to unprecedented high rainfall, sending hundreds of tonnes of waste matter down the Fox river and out to sea. Inthat region alone another 12 historic landfill sites are at risk, and remediation for the already-busted one to ensure no further spillage is a multi-million-dollar project that the region can't afford.

It's not just island nations either - A great portion of humanity lives close to a coastline and waste is generally interred in proximity to where consumption occurs. Physical damage is not the only consideration - Any situation that prompts power interruption, water damage, or reduced access to the site puts a landfill site at risk of incident. In the US the EPA considers there to be significant risk of these events and has had it in their sights for at least a decade: https://semspub.epa.gov/work/11/175853.pdf

Assuming that sea level rise is just a matter of adjusting the shoreline in accordance with topography is also a huge mistake - Erosion increases rate and begins occurring in places it didn't previously. Storm surges and king tides bring surge water to higher points that ever before, and intrusion of saltwater into landfills poses far higher risk of leaching than rain, river, or aquifer.

The underlying problem is a changing risk management landscape - A decision to site a landfill on a once-in-300-years flood site may be taken, but when that assessment is later revised to once-in-100 years, you're faced with either rolling the dice each year or pulling funding out of your ass to relocate. Repeat the gamble at a global scale at many thousands of sites, the overall odds look very bleak.

This is a problem for some extant landfills, but not the premise of landfills themselves. Most nations do not have a shortage of land a long way away from and above the ocean.

Agreed. Off the coast of LA, I just learned that companies were dumping thousands of DDT barrels for decades.

"Landfills could hold only so much, and people were concerned about burning toxics into the air — but the Pacific Ocean seemed a good alternative. Explosives, oil refinery waste, trash and rotting meats all went into the ocean, along with beryllium, various acid sludges, even cyanide." [1]

Companies were dumping and putting out of site. Much harder to burn it and avoid getting caught.

Third world countries are also taking first world trash and then dumping massive amounts into rivers and the ocean.

Cleaning up the ocean is a hell of a lot harder than cleaning up the air or the ground.

[1] https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-coast-ddt-dumping-ground...

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