A new federal report found that federal agencies frequently fail to collect the same amount of data about U.S. territories that they collect, and maintain, for states, which advocates say has wide implications for climate adaptation and mitigation.
The report, authored by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, or GAO, examined federal data collection in five island territories: Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and American Samoa. The latter three are home to relatively large communities of Indigenous Pacific Islanders. Guam, American Samoa, and the Virgin Islands are currently on the United Nations’ list of non-self-governing territories, a list of modern colonies whose peoples have not yet achieved self-government. All U.S. territories are experiencing the impacts of warming oceans, more frequent and violent storms, and bleaching coral reefs.
“As the saying goes, if you don’t count, then you don’t count,” said Neil Weare, co-director of Right to Democracy, an advocacy group for residents in U.S. territories. “If folks are serious about environmental justice, they need to be serious about addressing equity issues in U.S territories, particularly when it comes to issues of data collection.”
The GAO report doesn’t specifically mention climate change, but much of the missing data is closely related: demographics, economics, and agriculture. For instance, of all the National Agricultural Statistics Services’ statistical products, only one includes data from the territories. In American Samoa, where subsistence agriculture is becoming increasingly important to address gaps in food security and is also highly susceptible to the impacts of climate change, local officials say the census may undercount farms by relying too heavily on the presence of electric meters.
Some of the barriers to data collection are statutory: Federal legislation often leaves out U.S. territories. But other barriers include limited sample sizes due to relatively small populations; the high cost of collecting data, especially when agencies lack local staff; and technical challenges including a lack of residential postal addresses or postal delivery services on many islands that the Census Bureau normally relies on to mail surveys. The Bureau of Labor Statistics includes Puerto Rico in just four of its 21 statistical products, and it doesn’t include American Samoa or the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in any of them. The agency says it excludes Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands from many of its labor statistics in part because they don’t have local unemployment insurance programs.
On Guam, local officials said they’re often excluded from the federal Social Vulnerability Index, which estimates communities’ susceptibility to natural disasters, and worry that the lack of inclusion leads to underestimates of their need for resources. Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, which make up the same western Pacific archipelago, are frequently hit with typhoons and are still recovering from Typhoon Mawar and Yutu, the latter of which was the strongest storm in nearly a century to hit the U.S.
The report said that the Biden administration should ensure that the chief statistician at the Office of Management and Budget develop a plan for how to address the data gaps in consultation with the territories. This is encouraging to Neil Weare, who says it puts the onus on the Biden administration to act quickly.
“One of the key takeaways from that report is that the Biden administration can take action on many, if not almost all, of these items without further congressional approval,” Weare said. “So this really does set the stage for the Biden administration to act on these issues.”
Any climate action plan that wants to quickly turn the tide of global warming has to tackle methane, which traps orders of magnitude more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide in the first years after it’s emitted. For this reason, the Environmental Protection Agency recently required oil and gas drillers to monitor for leaks of the potent greenhouse gas — and fix them immediately if they’re found. The new regulations also empower community groups and environmental advocates to report fossil fuel companies if they can provide evidence of leaks themselves.
However, none of these requirements apply to one of the largest sources of human-caused methane emissions in the U.S.: landfills. As food waste and other organic matter decompose, they generate methane and other noxious gases. As a result, landfills are responsible for nearly a fifth of the country’s methane emissions, but almost half of U.S. landfills have not installed gas-capture systems, nor are they required to. In fact, emissions from many smaller landfills are not regulated by the EPA at all. For those that are subject to regulation — because of their size and estimated toxic emissions — landfill operators are required to walk around their facility’s perimeter and take methane measurements every 100 feet four times a year.
There are more than 2,600 landfills across the country, and they leak the equivalent of 287 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year into the air — a volume comparable to that which would result from operating 74 coal plants. A recent study by Carbon Mapper, a nonprofit that operates methane-detecting satellites, found methane emissions from landfills are 40 percent higher than previously estimated by the EPA.
“Landfills were actually found to be worse than oil and gas in the sense that when methane plumes happen, they’re more persistent,” said Katherine Blauvelt, a campaign director at Industrious Labs, an environmental organization working to decarbonize heavy industries. “If there was a canary in the coal mine, it’d be dead.”
Despite this, new federal regulations do not yet appear to be on the horizon. The EPA last revised regulations to reduce methane emissions from landfills in 2016. And while the agency is nearing an August 2024 statutory deadline to begin reviewing existing standards, it hasn’t initiated a new rulemaking process yet. (EPA representatives did not immediately respond to Grist’s request for comment on Monday.)
Last year, Industrious Labs obtained EPA inspection reports for four landfills in Oregon and Washington. The group found that inspectors reported dozens of instances when methane levels exceeded the EPA’s limit of 500 parts per million. In a follow-up report published last week, Industrious Labs broadened its analysis and examined inspection reports for landfills in an additional six states. The findings were alarming. The group found that nearly half of the inspections showed methane levels above the EPA’s threshold — even though, in many cases, landfill operators themselves had recently assured the agency of their compliance.
“That’s where you immediately say to yourself, ‘Something is wrong with the system,’” said Blauvelt. “The landfill operators are being set up to fail if they’re missing these large methane leaks.”
Blauvelt added that operators should opt for aerial monitoring technology such as drones and satellites, which can provide more accurate coverage, rather than the quarterly ground-level measurements that are the current standard.
Meanwhile, residents who live near landfills are battling nasty odors and explosions. In Southern California, an underground fire at Chiquita Canyon landfill has produced noxious fumes and contaminated runoff for the last two years. In Berkeley, explosive levels of methane were detected at a shuttered landfill beneath a park.
Joel Geier became very familiar with the nauseating odors associated with these sites in 2005, when he moved into his house less than half a mile from Coffin Butte Landfill near Corvallis, Oregon. Most days the wind blows away from his home, but on the days that the wind blows south, he’s hit with a “toxic chemical smell,” he told Grist, along with a “sour decomposition-type smell.”
Geier is a hydrogeologist, and he has been closely tracking the flow of runoff from the landfill. In recent years, high levels of arsenic have been found in monitoring wells around Coffin Butte. When it rains, water seeps through the landfill, reacting with the various chemicals it encounters on the way. The resulting brew is called leachate, and it can end up in groundwater and contaminate water wells that residents like Geier rely on. (Representatives from Coffin Butte Landfill did not immediately respond to Grist’s request for comment on Monday.)
Leachate also interferes with methane collection systems. Buried inside landfills are perforated pipes that trap and treat gases before they can escape and pollute the atmosphere. Coffin Butte collects about 30 million gallons of leachate a year. When EPA inspectors visited the dump in recent years, they observed that methane levels exceeded the agency’s 500-parts-per-million regulatory threshold at the leachate cleanout locations. Gas buildup was sometimes so high that inspectors noted that some tarped areas of the landfill were visibly inflated.
Blauvelt is hopeful that, when the EPA issues new landfill rules, it will borrow from its strategy for the oil and gas industry. By tackling methane, the Biden administration can reduce planet-warming emissions and improve living conditions for communities across the country, she said: “It’s an issue that has a lot of wins attached to it, if they choose to act.”
A keystone species, bison once roamed the American Great Plains in the tens of millions, but were hunted to near extinction.
Bison are known as ecosystem engineers because they perform many services for the habitats in which they live, like rolling around and packing down soil in wallows that collect rainwater and grazing on different heights of grasses, which provide birds with nesting grounds.
A new study by researchers from Yale University and Memorial University of Newfoundland has found that a herd of 170 bison being reintroduced to the Țarcu mountains of Romania could help sequester carbon dioxide emissions equal to removing at least 43,000 gas-powered cars from United States roads for one year, reported The Guardian.
“Most carbon cycle models do not consider animal-mediated effects, focusing instead on carbon exchanges among plants, microbes, and the atmosphere. Yet, a growing body of empirical evidence from diverse ecosystems points to pervasive animal effects on ecosystem carbon cycling and shows that ignoring them could lead to misrepresentation of an ecosystem’s carbon cycle,” the study said.
More than two centuries ago, Romania lost its last European bison. However, in 2014 the species was reintroduced to the Carpathian mountains by WWF Romania and Rewilding Europe, The Guardian reported. The 100 who were brought to the Tarcu mountains have grown to more than 170 — one of the biggest free-roaming bison populations on the European continent. The landscape can accommodate as many as 350 to 450 individuals.
For the study, the researchers used a model developed at the Yale School for the Environment. It calculates how much atmospheric carbon wildlife assists in capturing and storing in soils through their ecosystem interactions.
“Bison influence grassland and forest ecosystems by grazing grasslands evenly, recycling nutrients to fertilise the soil and all of its life, dispersing seeds to enrich the ecosystem, and compacting the soil to prevent stored carbon from being released,” said professor Oswald Schmitz, lead author of the study and a professor of population and community ecology at Yale University, as reported by The Guardian.
The herd of 170 graze in a grasslands area of nearly 19.3 square miles inside the wider Țarcu mountain range. The research team found that the bison could potentially capture another 59,525 tons of carbon annually.
The team said the number corresponds with the amount of annual carbon dioxide released by an average of at least 43,000 gas-powered cars in the U.S., or 123,000 in Europe, due to their increased energy efficiency.
“These creatures evolved for millions of years with grassland and forest ecosystems, and their removal, especially where grasslands have been ploughed up, has led to the release of vast amounts of carbon. Restoring these ecosystems can bring back balance, and ‘rewilded’ bison are some of the climate heroes that can help achieve this,” Schmitz said.
When bison browse and graze, it helps with the maintenance of a biodiverse landscape of scrub, grasslands, forests and microhabitats.
Their return to the Țarcu has inspired eco-businesses and tourism centered around rewilding.
Schmitz explained that the climate and soil conditions of the Carpathian mountain grasslands are specific, so bison’s impacts might not be the same in other locations around the world, such as prairies in the U.S., which are much less productive.
“This research opens up a whole new raft of options for climate policymakers around the world. Until now, nature protection and restoration has largely been treated as another challenge and cost that we need to face alongside the climate emergency. This research shows we can address both challenges: we can bring back nature through rewilding and this will draw down vast amounts of carbon, helping to stabilise the global climate,” said Magnus Sylvén, Global Rewilding Alliance’s director of science policy practice, as The Guardian reported.
The team explored the details of nine species — including sea otters, musk oxen and tropical forest elephants — and have started looking into others.
“Many of them show similar promise to these bison, often doubling an ecosystem’s capacity to draw down and store carbon, and sometimes much more. This really is a policy option with massive potential,” Schmitz said, as reported by The Guardian.
The study, “Rewiring the Carbon Cycle: A Theoretical Framework for Animal-Driven Ecosystem Carbon Sequestration,” was published in the journal JGR Biogeosciences.
The adorable otter is North America’s smallest marine mammal, as well as the largest species of the weasel family, which also includes skunks, badgers and wolverines.
With roughly 3,000 southern sea otters left in California, they are listed as threatened under the United States Endangered Species Act and play a crucial role in the restoration of the state’s damaged kelp forests, a press release from UT Austin said.
A new study by a team of researchers from Monterey Bay Aquarium; University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz); The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin); and elsewhere has found that otters who use tools like rocks and shells to break open the thick outer layers of mollusks are able to eat bigger prey, giving them higher rates of energy consumption while reducing wear on their teeth.
According to Chris Law — a UT Austin postdoctoral researcher who was the study’s lead author while a UC Santa Cruz graduate student — sea otters prefer to eat abalone and sea urchins, which are relatively easy to break apart, but those delicacies are declining, reported The Guardian.
The researchers said that, due to the absence of their preferred foods, sea otters often look for clams, mussels, marine snails and crabs. However, the snails’ hard shells can be damaging to their teeth.
“There’s fishing and habitat destruction, so their favorite prey are gone and they have to switch to alternative preys,” Law said, as The Guardian reported. “What we found is that [using tools] actually allows them to switch to those prey.”
The research team enlisted volunteers to track 196 southern sea otters off the California coast to gain a better understanding of how they use tools in a habitat that is changing quickly, the press release said. The team monitored tool use and linked it to the otters’ dental health and dietary patterns.
They found that using the tools meant less tooth injuries.
“Sea otters vary in how often they use tools,” Law said in the press release. “The females are likely using tools to overcome their smaller body size and weaker biting ability in order to meet their calorie demands. Raising pups takes a lot of energy, and the females need to be efficient in their foraging. The study shows that tool use is an important behavior for survival.”
The study, “Tool use increases mechanical foraging success and tooth health in southern sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis),” was published in the journal Science.
While using tools widened the availability of different types of prey for both female and male otters, the researchers found that female otters had less damage to their teeth. It is more likely for female otters to use tools, research has shown, and the new study found that those who did had access to larger or harder prey than those who did not. The researchers found that females were able to eat prey that were as much as 35 percent harder in comparison with males who used tools.
Females of other species, such as chimpanzees, bonobos and dolphins, have also been known to utilize tools more often than males. Females of these species tend to raise their offspring and are the ones who pass down their tool-using behavior.
“This behavior really allows them to eat other prey items and in an environment where that’s depleted. It really just showcases how it’s important for their overall survival. If there are no urchins and abalone for them to eat and they are faced with other prey types they can’t open, they can’t survive,” Law said, as reported by The Guardian.
Researchers at the University of New Mexico have found concentrations of microplastics in the testicular tissue of humans and dogs. The findings raise concerns over how these particles can impact the reproductive system.
The project started when study lead Xiaozhong Yu, a professor at the university’s College of Nursing, spoke with colleague Matthew Campen, professor at the university’s College of Pharmacy, about environmental factors impacting sperm count and quality. Campen had previously revealed the presence of microplastics in human placentas.
Yu led a team of researchers who replicated the method used in Campen’s research to analyze testicle tissue samples obtained for testing from the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator and from animal shelters and veterinary clinics in Albuquerque, as the University of New Mexico reported.
They used advanced sensitive Pyrolysis-Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry (Py-GC/MS) to detect and measure the presence of microplastics. “Our study revealed the presence of microplastics in all human and canine testes,” Yu said.
They found 12 different types of microplastics in testicular tissue samples of 23 humans and 47 dogs. The scientists published their findings in the journal Toxicological Sciences.
Not only did the researchers find evidence of microplastics in the testicular tissue samples, but they also found them at higher concentrations than the average concentrations found in tissues from placenta samples in Campen’s study.
“At the beginning, I doubted whether microplastics could penetrate the reproductive system,” Yu said. “When I first received the results for dogs I was surprised. I was even more surprised when I received the results for humans.”
The study authors noted an average concentration of 122.63 micrograms in canine testes and 329.44 micrograms in human testes. The most common type of microplastic found in both the human and dog tissue samples was polyethylene (PE), although the researchers noted no correlation between PE concentrations in the dogs’ tissue samples with lower sperm count. They did, however, find a link between higher PVC concentrations in the canine samples with lower sperm count.
“The plastic makes a difference – what type of plastic might be correlated with potential function,” Yu explained. “PVC can release a lot of chemicals that interfere with spermatogenesis and it contains chemicals that cause endocrine disruption.”
As the Center for Environmental Health, which was not part of the study, reported, PVC is often treated with chemicals like phthalates and bisphenol-A (BPA) to make it less brittle, but the additives can pose health risks, including risks to hormones.
Yu pointed out that the study findings are not meant to scare anyone, but they can help increase awareness and help the public make more informed decisions and try to avoid microplastics.
“We need to really look at what the potential long-term effect,” Yu said. “Are microplastics one of the factors contributing to this decline?”
Modern sanitary landfills are not merely open repositories for waste, but have many complex components, including a composite liner, collection systems for methane and leachate, and environmental monitoring systems.
In the absence of light, oxygen and the necessary bacteria, it can take decades for food to break down completely in a landfill, producing methane as it slowly decomposes.
Landfills are the third largest source of methane — a greenhouse gas that’s 25% more potent than CO2 — emissions in the U.S.
In 2018, 600 million tons of construction and demolition debris were generated, which is more than twice the amount of MSW.
The documented adverse health outcomes correlated with living near landfills include higher risk of cancer and birth defects in infants.
A school adjoins the Dandora landfill, the biggest dumpsite in East Africa and the destination of solid waste generated by Nairobi, Kenya, on Feb. 23, 2023. It was declared full in 1996 but is still operating and many people go there to find plastic, food or clothes they can sell. Simone Boccaccio / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images
Most of us barely have to think about our trash. We throw it in a bin, take the bag to the curb, then the garbage truck comes and takes it away. Pretty quickly, our waste becomes invisible to us, but it has to end up somewhere.
Waste comes from many different streams — households, industrial settings, workplaces, medical facilities, etc. — and our current system for trash and garbage disposal primarily entails burying it underground. In the U.S., waste generated by homes and businesses is most commonly sent to landfills: huge repositories in the earth to be filled with trash and covered over. The first modern sanitary landfill was created in California in 1937, but the practice became more widely adapted in the 1960s and 70s as waste production rose, and municipalities sought ways to limit unsanitary waste disposal. In 1976, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act was passed and created requirements for landfills to protect surrounding environments. Now, there are more than 2,600 landfills for municipal solid waste (MSW) in the U.S., a waste category that encompasses things like wood, paper, textiles, furniture, glass, plastic, some electronics and more.
Why Do We Have Landfills?
The Calabasas landfill in Los Angeles County, California on Jan. 22, 2008. Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
The U.S. in particular generates a great deal of waste. Despite making up only 4% of the global population, the U.S. is responsible for 12% of the planet’s trash. It has historically exported its waste to other countries to handle, but in recent years, China, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam have put bans in place on imported waste, further increasing the need for domestic repositories for trash, such as landfills.
While some waste can get recovered or recycled — and some of it is burned — the majority is sent to landfills. In 2018, 69 million tons of MWS was recycled and 25 million tons was composted, which amounts to about 32.1% of all MWS. About 3 million tons was combusted, leaving 146 million tons — half of the total — to be sent to landfills. In the absence of large-scale municipal recycling and composting programs, waste is thrown away when it could have been diverted to other streams. Our recycling system, however, isn’t perfect either — ultimately, only 9% of plastics gets recycled. With bans on our junk being imported to other countries to deal with — leaving about 19,000 shipping containers worth of plastic recycling with nowhere to go every month — much of this waste is being sent to domestic landfills instead.
Are There Different Types of Landfills?
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Different types of landfills exist for different types of waste, as categorized by the EPA. All are supposed to meet nationwide criteria established under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), which sets forth requirements for landfills in the absence of state programs including location restrictions, requirements for liners and toxin collection/removal systems, and required operating practices.
Solid Waste Landfills
Heavy machinery spreads garbage at the King County Cedar Hills Regional Landfill facilities, a municipal solid waste landfill near Maple Valley, Washington on Oct. 5, 2023. Wolfgang Kaehler / LightRocket via Getty Images
Municipal Solid Waste Landfills (MSWLFs) are primarily for the waste that’s generated in our homes, schools, hospitals and businesses, as well as some nonhazardous materials from industry and construction. There are about 2,600 MSWLFs in the U.S., managed by the individual states they reside in. MSW is usually brought to transfer stations in municipalities, then transported on large, long-distance trucks to MSWLs.
Bioreactor landfills also fall under this category, and are used for degrading organic waste quickly. In these landfills, liquids are added to help bacteria break the waste down using either aerobic or anaerobic techniques.
The Yolo County Landfill Bioreactor in California was built to accelerate the decomposition of waste and produce renewable energy in 5 to 10 years. Yolo County
Industrial Waste Landfills are used for commercial and institutional waste. For example, Construction and Demolition Debris Landfills are repositories for heavy and bulky materials like wood, concrete, drywall, salvaged components of buildings like plumbing and windows, metal and glass generated during construction and demolition of roads, bridges and buildings. This accounts for a large amount of waste in the U.S. — in 2018, 600 million tons of C&D debris were generated, which is more than twice the amount of MSW. Demolition itself accounts for 90% of all C&D waste.
The former 38-acre Ascon Landfill operated from 1938 to 1984, taking much of its waste from oil drilling operations and construction debris, pictured in Huntington Beach, California on May 30, 2019. Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Coal Combustion Residual Landfills fall under the Industrial Waste category too, housing the nearly 130 million tons of coal ash generated every year from the burning of coal in power plants. After a large coal ash spill in Tennessee in 2008 flooded 300 acres of land and got into two rivers, the EPA established that these materials must be disposed of in such landfills.
Thousands of tons of coal fly ash deposited in an unlined landfill in Chester, West Virginia on Sept. 10, 2008. The fly ash originates from the coal-fired 2460 MW Bruce Mansfield Power Plant in Shippingport, Pennsylvania. Fly ash contains toxic heavy metals including arsenic, selenium, mercury, cadmium, chromium and lead. Robert Nickelsberg / Getty Images
Hazardous Waste Landfills
Hazardous Waste landfills are exactly what they sound like: repositories for only hazardous waste that is flammable, toxic or chemically reactive, including things like household cleaners, chemical waste, paint and aerosols. These types of landfills are the most regulated by the EPA, and are monitored even after their closure for toxic leachate.
The Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland, Washington on June 30, 2005. The landfill holds discarded contaminated soil, building materials and debris from cleanup work following Hanford’s decades as a plutonium production complex since the 1940s. Jeff T. Green / Getty Images
Open Dump Landfills
Residents living near the Chiquita Canyon Landfill in Castaic, California say it should be closed due to odors, contamination and health risks, pictured on Nov. 22, 2023. Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
When we talk about landfills, we’re typically referring to “sanitary landfills” — that is, municipal landfills that are regulated and controlled. However, open dump landfills are common in many areas of the Global South, and are used by about 70% of countries for disposing MSW. Without municipal waste disposal programs, these dumps are where trash often ends up.
Because these landfills typically aren’t regulated or controlled, they’re more likely to cause fires, attract pests and pollute the surrounding area. The toxic gases they produce are also not contained, so methane is released into the nearby environment. Water contamination is a primary problem around open dump landfills. Without groundwater monitoring systems in place, toxins make their way into groundwater and nearby drinking water, which has the potential to transmit infection and disease.
Basic Components and Operations of a Landfill
Open dumping is illegal in the U.S., and landfills must follow certain design and operation guidelines as established under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), although they’re created and managed state-by-state.
The major components of sanitary landfills include the following:
Leachate collection system. Leachate is the liquid that percolates through the landfill, picking up toxins as it moves. Once it reaches the bottom of the landfill, it’s collected by perforated tubes and pumped out into a collection area, and then a holding pond where it’s treated to remove the harmful toxins.
Plastic liner system (or “composite liner”). The liner — created from a layer of compacted clay and specific types of plastic — is meant to keep the landfill completely sealed so groundwater and soil aren’t contaminated by leachate.
To reduce the formation of liquids, gases and dust, geomembrane waterproofing is used in municipal solid waste landfills like this one in Italy pictured on Aug. 20, 2023. It acts as a barrier between covered material and the surrounding space to prevent the spread of pollutant leachate. Marco Scataglini / UCG / Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Cells are the areas where trash is dumped and compacted, allowing landfills to be filled in a segmented manner. Every day, waste is tipped into the active cell, which gets mechanically compacted. Layers of soil are laid down to cover the trash at intervals, and help to prevent odor. When the cell becomes full, another one is started.
Stormwater drainage systems collect the rainwater that lands on the landfill, move it to drainage ditches, and then to collection ponds.
Methane collection systems are needed to collect the methane — a potent greenhouse gas — that forms during the decomposition of organic waste. Landfills are among the largest sources of methane in the U.S., and collection systems prevent it from being released into the air. Wells, pipes and pumps collect the methane, where it’s then piped to a facility that processes it and removes impurities. From there, the refined methane can be distributed for such uses as vehicle fuel and electricity. About 500 MSW landfills collect methane for energy in this way.
The Pioneer Crossing Landfill in Berks County, Pennsylvania uses methane gas, a byproduct of the decomposition of waste, to produce electricity for the local utility company. J.P. Mascaro & Sons
Environmental monitoring systems monitor the groundwater, storm water, and gas around landfills. Pipes go down into the groundwater to find whether they’ve become warmer or more acidic, which could mean that leachate is escaping and getting into the landfill’s surrounding environment.
The Cap seals the top of the landfill. Usually, a layer of compacted soil or clay is put down, then layers of fabric and plastic before a 2-foot layer of soil (sometimes followed by more inches of topsoil) is put down so vegetation can grow on top of it.
How Does Waste Act Inside a Landfill?
Waste acts much differently inside a landfill than it would in your trash can, or when merely left out in the open. Different types of waste also act differently, posing unique problems depending on their makeup.
Organic Waste
What’s so bad about putting food in a landfill? It’ll just break down eventually, right? Not exactly.
Food is the largest category of landfilled material, according to the EPA, accounting for about 24%. The dark, anaerobic — that is, oxygen-free — environment of a landfill means that the insects and microorganisms needed to properly break down these materials aren’t present. Decomposition thus happens much, much slower, and releases a lot of methane as a byproduct. In a landfill, it can take decades for food to break down completely. By some estimates, a head of lettuce won’t completely decompose for 25 years. In other cases, food may not decompose at all.
Piles of discarded fruit at the Shelford Landfill, Recycling & Composting Centre near Canterbury, England on Aug. 23, 2007. Peter Macdiarmid / Getty Images
Plastics
In landfills, most polymers and plastics remain “unchanged,” according to a 2022 study. Abundant evidence shows that plastic never really degrades, but rather breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces, eventually creating microplastics. The forces and environmental conditions of landfills — like gas, the pH of leachate, high salinity, temperature fluctuation, high pressure, etc. — can cause plastics to fragment into microplastics that can then be transported out of landfills in leachate and pollute nearby areas. Microplastic abundance in landfill refuse is between 20,000 and 91,000 items/kg — higher than the concentration in sewage sludge and agricultural soil. Therefore, when you throw a piece of plastic in a bag of landfill-bound trash, that doesn’t guarantee it’ll remain sealed off from the environment forever.
Energy Recovery in Landfills
The McCarty Road Landfill in Houston, one of the largest waste disposal facilities in Texas, reclaims methane produced in the landfill to power generators and make renewable natural gas, pictured on May 31, 2022. Brett Coomer / Houston Chronicle via Getty Images
Sometimes after a landfill is capped, the gases that form within it over time are vented out for energy recovery efforts. These gases can be used to generate electricity or as medium-Btu fuel, and have uses for vehicle fuel, pipeline gas, industrial and institutional buildings, and creating electricity for the grid. They’re recovered using a series of wells and vacuum systems that direct it to a collection area, after which it’s processed and can then be used. About 68% of all landfill gas (LFG) projects is for generating electricity, and 16% is used to offset another fuel, like fracked gas and coal. Another 16% is used to make renewable natural gas (RNG), a high-Btu gas that can be used instead of fossil natural gas.
Why Are Landfills a Problem?
On the surface, landfills seem like a logical solution to our waste — if we have nowhere else to put it, why not bury it? Landfills do, however, present serious and potentially life-threatening risks to nearby communities and the environment.
Location
A plastic liner covers a portion of the Fresh Kills Landfill on the New York City borough of Staten Island, formerly the largest landfill in the world, on June 30, 1995. James Leynse / Corbis via Getty Images
Federal and state regulations mandate where landfills can be built, placing restrictions on building near wetlands or flood zones without certain performance standards in place. In some states, they can’t be put near bodies of water at all. But many landfills are poorly managed, leaving them susceptible to environmental conditions and leading to pollution. Landfills are also associated with poorer quality of life when placed near residential communities, discussed further in the next section.
Residents of North Bellport, New York say the nearby Brookhaven Town recycling and landfill facility releases toxic emissions and odors, pictured on April 25, 2023. Steve Pfost / Newsday RM via Getty Images
Soil Pollution
Like water moving through coffee grounds, rainwater moving through landfills becomes saturated with the toxins inside the trash, eventually reaching the bottom as leachate. Some of this liquid does get collected by the leachate collection system, but if there are any holes in the lining, it can easily escape into the surrounding environment. Nearby soil is destroyed by the toxic chemicals, impacting the ability of plants to grow there and threatening the biodiversity of the area.
Workers cover potential airborne debris and gases on a portion of the West Lake Landfill in St. Louis, Missouri on June 1, 2017. The site was an unlined mixed-waste landfill whose contents included illegally dumped radioactive waste. It’s also an EPA Superfund cleanup site. Linda Davidson / The Washington Post via Getty Images
Air Pollution
Air quality also suffers around landfills. Particulates, dust and other air pollutants can escape from landfills. Vinyl chloride, ethyl benzene and toluene, are just some of the hazardous air pollutants emitted from MSW landfills. Respiratory problems — among other adverse health conditions — have been linked to landfill-related air pollution.
The largest and oldest open-air dump in Argentina is Lujan in Buenos Aires, pictured on March 1, 2024. For 60 years, millions of tons of municipal waste have accumulated in the landfill, which overlooks a lagoon with a rich variety of flora and fauna. The landfill continues to leak leachate as well as toxic gases and smoke into the environment, the surrounding water tables and lagoons. Luciano Gonzalez / Anadolu via Getty Images
Water Pollution
When landfill leakages occur and leachate gets into groundwater, it becomes contaminated with toxins in industry and household waste, as well as electronics, which contain mercury, cadmium and lead. Ammonia is often in leachate, and produces nitrate. High concentrations of nitrate in ecosystems causes eutrophication, a process by which a high nutrient concentration in water leads to an explosion of plant life and algal growth, creating “dead zones” devoid of oxygen. Besides ammonia, leachate can also transport bacteria and heavy metals into groundwater, potentially contaminating drinking water.
A large covering that will eventually stretch over a 30-acre area to better suppress odors and emissions from an underground landfill fire at Chiquita Canyon Landfill in Castaic, California on Feb. 22, 2024. Environmental regulators found elevated levels of cancer-causing benzene in the polluted water spilling onto the surface of the landfill. Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Landfill Gas and Greenhouse Gases
Landfill gas (LFG), formed from the breakdown of organic waste inside the landfill, is mostly methane and CO2 (90-98%), but also contains nitrogen, oxygen, ammonia, hydrogen, and sulfides, among others. Its makeup depends on the specific conditions and age of the landfill, as well as temperature and water content, but some landfills can produce gas for up to 50 years.
Methane is a primary cause for concern in LFG, formed from the slow decomposition of organic matter in the airtight, anaerobic conditions of the landfill. Landfills are the third largest source of methane emissions in the U.S., and for a greenhouse gas that’s 25% more potent than CO2, this has major implications for global climate change. Methane is also highly flammable. In March 2022, a massive fire started at a landfill site outside of Delhi, India, releasing toxins into the air. The fire, unfortunately, came right on the heels of an analysis stating that New Delhi was already the most polluted capital in the world.
Workers use backhoe loaders to move the waste at the biggest landfill in Delhi, India on July 28, 2020. Amarjeet Kumar Singh / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images
Besides its climate-warming components, landfill gases can also get into structures near the landfill. They come up through the soil in a process called “soil vapor intrusion,” collecting in poorly-ventilated areas and polluting the indoor air of nearby buildings.
Human Health
People wearing protective masks hold banners with pictures of polluted areas during a demonstration by Comitato Stop Biocidio (Stop to Biocide Committee) highlighting environmental problems of the Campania Region such as illegal landfills, the burning of toxic waste and the consequent growth of tumors among the population, in Naples, Campania, Italy on June 6, 2020. Manuela Ricci / KONTROLAB / LightRocket via Getty Images
These gases, pollutants and toxins impact the health of people who live near landfills. Open or poorly-managed landfills can lead to drinking water contamination, thereby transmitting diseases and causing infection. Documented adverse health outcomes include higher risk of cancer and birth defects in infants. Trichloroethylene (TCE) is just one carcinogen associated with leachate, entering the soil and groundwater near landfills. Ammonia and hydrogen sulfide are also harmful to humans and can cause coughing, difficulty breathing, and trigger asthma, headaches, nausea, and irritation in the eyes, nose and throat. For those who live near waste lagoons of landfills, adverse health outcomes are an especially serious problem.
Why Are Landfills an Environmental Justice Issue?
It has long been the case that landfills are constructed more often near communities of color and low-income neighborhoods. A 1983 study conducted by Congress’s Government Accountability Office found that in eight southeastern states, 75% of hazardous waste landfill sites were located in communities that were primarily Black, Latine and low-income. This puts marginalized communities at greater health risk. The proximity of landfills to housing also keeps property values low, which can make it hard for residents to sell their property and escape the health hazards.
What Can We Do?
Minimize Waste
In the simplest terms, to reduce our dependence on landfills, we need to reduce our waste. Diverting our waste through recycling and composting can keep waste out of landfills, as can just using less stuff altogether.
The recycling system in the U.S. is far from perfect. Due to a combination of many factors — including the un-recyclability of many materials, poor waste systems and lack of recycling systems in some areas — only about 9% of plastic actually gets recycled. However, when done properly, taking part in recycling programs keeps these materials out of landfills. Composting at home or through municipal programs is another important step, and is possible no matter where you live. An estimated 8-10% of yearly GHG emissions are associated with unconsumed food, and 30-40% of our national food supply is wasted every year. Composting keeps that organic waste from entering landfills in the first place, where it’ll decompose and produce methane.
Green waste decomposes at a composting facility at the Frank R. Bowerman Landfill in Irvine, California on Nov. 2, 2022. Paul Bersebach / MediaNews Group / Orange County Register via Getty Images
Legislative Action
Many of these solutions might seem like they’re out of our hands. How are we as individual people supposed to create a better global recycling system? How are we supposed to redistribute construction materials so they aren’t wasted? We can stop using single-use plastics on our own, but how can we make that change on a larger scale? How can we as individuals create a more just and sustainable MSW system?
Voting isn’t a silver bullet for all of our problems, but it’s an important tool we have in bringing about change. Vote for local and federal legislators who have platforms based on environmental action and justice, including the implementation of sustainable integrated waste management on a larger scale. Better-managed and engineered facilities for waste that meet environmental requirements and aren’t placed in sensitive areas is an important step. New York City — where residential composting is now mandatory – is one success story, and shows how large-scale composting solutions can be implemented by people in power. There are models for other ways of handling our waste. In Sweden, for example, 0% of MSW ends up in landfills, due in part to good recycling infrastructure and biological treatment of waste.
Coming up with other uses for the land that landfills occupy has been another topic of conversation. Many landfills in the U.S. have been identified as promising locations for solar farms, and many have already been built, using that land to create clean, renewable energy.
The Hickory Ridge Landfill near Atlanta, Georgia opened in 2011 as the world’s largest landfill solar energy cap, including 10 acres of solar panels generating enough electricity to power 224 homes. Jeff Greenberg / Education Images / Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Takeaway
Landfills aren’t merely dumping grounds for our trash, but rather are complex, regulated structures with many components. Soil, air, and water pollution is just one set of issues associated with landfills, along with greenhouse gas emissions, injustices on nearby communities, and steep costs to human health. Creating a more just and sustainable system of waste management that minimizes our reliance on landfills — and makes the landfills we do have better-engineered, better-managed, and better-monitored – will be an effort that incorporates both personal action and large-scale legislation, and changes in how we view and handle waste in our culture.
The Puente Hills Park project in Industry, California involves re-landscaping what had been a vast landfill into a recreation/wilderness area. The landfill closed in 2013 after operating for 56 years. Pictured on June 28, 2023. Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Is bottled water really “natural” if it’s contaminated with microplastics? A series of lawsuits recently filed against six bottled water brands claim that it’s deceptive to use labels like “100 percent mountain spring water” and “natural spring water” — not because of the water’s provenance, but because it is likely tainted with tiny plastic fragments.
Reasonable consumers, the suits allege, would read those labels and assume bottled water to be totally free of contaminants; if they knew the truth, they might not have bought it. “Plaintiff would not have purchased, and/or would not have paid a price premium” for bottled water had they known it contained “dangerous substances,” reads the lawsuit filed against the bottled water company Poland Spring.
The six lawsuits target the companies that own Arrowhead, Crystal Geyser, Evian, Fiji, Ice Mountain, and Poland Spring. They are variously seeking damages for lost money, wasted time, and “stress, aggravation, frustration, loss of trust, loss of serenity, and loss of confidence in product labeling.”
Experts aren’t sure it’s a winning legal strategy, but it’s a creative new approach for consumers hoping to protect themselves against the ubiquity of microplastics. Research over the past several years has identified these particles — fragments of plastic less than 5 millimeters in diameter — just about everywhere, in nature and in people’s bodies. Studies have linked them to an array of health concerns, including heart disease, reproductive problems, metabolic disorder, and, in one recent landmark study, an increased risk of death from any cause.
Of the six class-action lawsuits, five were filed earlier this year by the law firm of Todd M. Friedman, a consumer protection and employment firm with locations in California, Illinois, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The sixth was filed by the firm Ahdoot & Wolfson on behalf of a New York City resident.
Each lawsuit uses the same general argument to make its case, beginning with research on the prevalence of microplastics in bottled water. Several of them cite a 2018 study from Orb Media and the State University of New York in Fredonia that found microplastic contamination in 93 percent of bottles tested across 11 brands in nine countries. In half of the brands tested, researchers found more than 1,000 pieces of microplastic per liter. (A standard bottle can hold about half a liter of water.) More recent research has found that typical water bottles have far higher levels: 240,000 particles per liter on average, taking into account smaller fragments known as “nanoplastics.”
The complaints then go on to argue that bottled water contaminated with microplastics cannot be “natural,” as implied by product labels like “natural artisan water” (Fiji), “100 percent natural spring water” (Poland Spring), and “natural spring water” (Evian). The suit against Poland Spring cites a dictionary definition of natural as “existing in or caused by nature; not made or caused by humankind.” That lawsuit and the others also point to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which does not strictly regulate the use of the word “natural” but has “a longstanding policy” of considering the term to mean a food is free from synthetic or artificial additives “that would not normally be expected to be in that food.”.
The lawsuit against Arrowhead bottled water, advertised as “100 percent mountain spring water,” argues that it’s the “100 percent” that’s deceptive. “Reasonable consumers do not understand the term ‘100 percent’ to mean ‘99 percent,’ ‘98 percent,’ ‘97 percent,’ or any other percentage except for ‘100 percent,’” the complaint reads. In other words, consumers expect a product that’s labeled as 100 percent water to contain exactly 0 percent microplastics.
Are reasonable consumers really taking labels so literally? Jeff Sovern, a professor of consumer protection law at the University of Maryland, said it’s “plausible” that people would expect bottled water labeled as “natural” to not contain non-natural microplastics, but it’s hard to say without conducting a survey. It will be up to judges to evaluate that argument — if the cases go to trial. One of the lawsuits filed by the firm of Todd M. Friedman against the company that owns Crystal Geyser was withdrawn last month, potentially a sign that the parties reached a settlement.
“A lot of these types of cases get settled,” said Laura Smith, legal director of the nonprofit Truth in Advertising, Inc. This may reflect the strength of the plaintiffs’ arguments, or it could reflect a company’s desire to avoid the expense of going to court.
In response to Grist’s request for comment, Evian — owned by Danone — said it could not comment on active litigation, but that it “denies the allegations and will vigorously defend itself in the lawsuit.”
“Microplastics and nanoplastics are found throughout the environment in our soil, air, and water, and their presence is a complex and evolving area of science,” a spokesperson told Grist, adding that the FDA has not issued regulations for nano- or microplastic particles in food and beverage products.
The companies named in the other lawsuits — BlueTriton Brands Inc., CG Roxane LLC, and The Wonderful Co. LLC — did not respond to requests for comment.
Erica Cirino, a spokesperson for the nonprofit Plastic Pollution Coalition, said the new lawsuits are part of a longstanding effort to hold bottled water companies accountable not only for microplastic contamination, but also for other misleading claims about their products’ purity. A lawsuit against Nestlé in 2017 said its “Pure Life Purified” brand name and labels misrepresented the purity of its water, in violation of the California Legal Remedies Act. That case was dismissed in 2019 for a “failure to allege a cognizable legal theory”; the latest lawsuits’ “natural” claims represent a different tactic.
Evian-branded bottled water.
Roy Rochlin / Getty Images
Perhaps the best-known legal challenges have involved the origin of so-called “spring water.” In 2017, for example, a class-action lawsuit against Nestlé Waters North America, which owned Poland Spring at the time, said the company was fooling customers into buying “ordinary groundwater.” A U.S. district court judge dismissed that suit in 2018 on the grounds that its allegations improperly cited violations of a state law, rather than a federal one. Nestlé settled a similar lawsuit in 2003 for $10 million, though it denied that its practices had been deceptive.
More recent lawsuits have taken aim at bottled water companies’ claims that their products are “carbon neutral,” or that their bottles are “100 percent recyclable.” Only 9 percent of plastics worldwide ever get recycled.
Many of these lawsuits have yet to be evaluated by a judge, although a 2021 complaint against Niagara Bottling over “100 percent recyclable” labels was tossed out by a U.S. district court judge in New York in the following year.
According to Smith, one hurdle for these lawsuits is that they’re only able to cite research on the microplastics’ potential to damage people’s health, rather than actual damages that they’ve suffered from drinking contaminated bottled water. Even if the plaintiffs did have health problems linked to microplastics, these particles are ubiquitous; it would be nearly impossible to isolate the effects from drinking microplastics in bottled water from those of microplastics found everywhere else.
“It’s a wider systemic issue with our entire food and beverage supply,” Cirino said.
Keeping microplastics out of people’s bodies would require a similarly systemic approach, potentially involving government rules and incentives for companies to replace single-use plastics with reusables made from glass and aluminum — as well as an overall reduction in the amount of plastic the world makes. In the meantime, one recent article in The Dieline floated the idea of putting microplastics warning labels on plastic water bottles.
