Literature Review On Landfills

2478 Words10 Pages
Literature review It is common knowledge that if waste is not disposed in the correct manner it badly affects the environment and then in turn animals and human beings are affected as we depend on the environment for survival. 1. Source 1: Landfills and hazardous waste sites I personally cannot begin to imagine life with landfills or dumping sites. If we had no landfills where would all the waste that is produced on a daily basis by households, firms, factories and companies go? How dirty would our cities and towns be? We would have rodent attacks all the time if we did not have a place to dump our waste. What about hygiene? One also needs to consider that our residential areas are becoming so highly populated. The fight for living…show more content…
It is stated in the report that landfills in the region are the ones that mostly pollute the soil and freshwater. What takes place is that soil and underground water are polluted by leachate. Leachate is the liquid formed during decomposition of disposed waste material and what happens is that it first penetrates through the soil and then it ends seeping into the different soil layers and then mixes with groundwater and ends up polluting it. So now we are left with contaminated groundwater. The water will therefore not be able to be used by humans but then the problem is that humans do not that the water is contaminated. That is why many of the residents around landfills are bound to fall sick. What is most dangerous is the leaching of heavy metals and hazardous chemicals. This is because it affects the flora and fauna of that environment. This will then ultimately mean that there will be less biodiversity. As mentioned the quality of the soil will be affected. This will impact the recreational value of open space areas. The soil will be contaminated it cannot not be put to other use basically as it will be putting and risking the lives of humans. As no income can be made from the open spaces this would then mean the local economy of the Durban Metropolitan Area would be negatively affected. This is not good as the world population is constantly growing and there will be more demand of natural…show more content…
In all honestly our world would be chaotic without landfills but then the problem is that the landfills have their own negative effects. The problems are more extreme in developing countries because there is less insight on environmental issues and the government is not that active in trying to regulate landfill effects. Developed countries are more privileged in the sense that they have economic stability allowing them to invest in a cleaner environment. The major problems in landfills is the due leachate leaks. Sometimes the leachate systems fail and this leads to their leakage. The leachate leakages lead to the contamination of soil and groundwater. The groundwater then becomes inconsumable by humans as it is lethal to their health. The landfill methane is also dangerous. It contributes to both soil and air pollution. It contributes to the rise of lung diseases, brain and nerve damage, and

More about Literature Review On Landfills

Open Document