History of Garbage

In the natural world, waste produced by animal or plant life is completely reused as a resource for other living things.

Only human beings produce garbage that cannot be 100 per cent recycled. Our waste has become so specialized and processed that we often can't reduce it back to its basic natural components.

Garbage is a major issue. Each year the average Calgarian produces 740 kilograms of waste in a year.
 
We also know what our garbage is. A typical household's waste includes: paper (25%), food waste (23%), yard waste (19%), plastic (9%), metal (3%), glass (2%), household hazardous waste (1%) and other (15%).  Download the Household garbage breakdown chart  (143 KB).

• Where does all this garbage go?
• What happens when a landfill closes?
• Garbage is here to stay and so are our landfills

Where does all this garbage go?

In the old days, garbage was literally "dumped" into depressions, gorges or valleys usually located just outside of towns.

Health and environmental concerns led to more "sanitary" methods of handling our wastes. As a result, the typical landfill has developed over the past 50 years.

Today's landfills are highly engineered and sophisticated facilities that carefully manage our wastes to lessen the impact on the environment.

A typical modern landfill requires extensive engineering and planning. It includes features designed to protect the surrounding environment from any potentially negative effects of our garbage such as several layers of clay, gravel and synthetic material that "line" the bottom of a landfill to contain the waste liquids and garbage.

A system of pipes is also laid down to collect leachate. Leachate is a highly concentrated "garbage juice" which can have negative effects on the environment. It's caused when rainwater and liquid wastes percolate through the garbage, creating leachate. The pipe system collects this liquid, keeping it out of the groundwater.  The leachate is then sent for treatment at a waste water treatment plant.

Layers of garbage are tightly compacted to reduce its volume – both to save space as well as reduce the amount of oxygen in the garbage. Each layer is then covered with dirt to further contain the garbage.

Eventually, landfills are filled. When they are shut down they're "capped" with more layers similar to the liner and reclaimed with topsoil and replanted with natural vegetation.

What happens when a landfill closes?

Our responsibility doesn't end when we close a landfill. All City landfills, whether open and operational, or closed and dormant, are continually monitored. 

We monitor because studies show that decomposition in a landfill is extremely slow. This rate of decomposition could potentially affect the surrounding environment. In fact, some wastes such as glass, metals and plastics may not break down at all.

In an enclosed environment with little oxygen, the organic wastes found in our garbage produce landfill gas. It consists roughly of equal parts carbon dioxide and methane (a greenhouse gas that is over 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide). This makes our landfills the top single-point source of greenhouse gases in Calgary.

There is another issue. As rainwater and liquid wastes percolate through the garbage, they mix to become leachate, a highly concentrated "garbage juice" which can have negative effects on the environment. This leachate needs to be continually collected through a system of pipes and removed for treatment.

Garbage is here to stay and so are our landfills

As long as we produce garbage, we'll need landfills to store it. Previously, once a landfill space was closed, there were few options to reuse it.

The unstable nature of garbage as it "settles" – and the need to monitor leachate and methane production – make these sites unsuitable for residential or commercial space. However we have made strides towards making these spaces useable once again through landfill reclamation projects.

Currently, The City operates three landfills each with a remaining lifespan of about 35 or more years. Capacity can be extended by the '3 Rs' - reducing, reusing and recycling.