Landfills, Modern

Beginnings of Modern Landfills

Disposing of leftovers and street cleanings on dumping sites for a long time resembled a natural process. As long as wastes consisted of organics and minerals, dumped in small piles, they would turn into a sort of “waste humus,” which local farmers would then use as dung or soil conditioner. The distinctions between dumping and producing this so-called waste soil were vague, as long as both practices were devoid of specific methods and the fermentation process was yet unexplored. Moreover, in many regions, ancient landfills were exploited to retrieve the fermented soil and fresh waste was used to reclaim land, for example, by filling it into previously idle wetlands or by creating artificial hills for sports and recreation. The engineering method of modern landfilling was rooted in such practices, even though the 19th-century sanitary movement had hinted at the hazards of water and soil contamination by waste piles.

In the 1920s and 1930s, the “sanitary landfill” and “controlled tipping” were developed in the United Kingdom and United States, and France developed the dépôt contrôlé. These novel landfilling concepts were supposed to modernize tipping, which became considered as unhygienic or wild. The main alterations between the traditional and the modern landfill initially consisted of (1) the use of mechanical traction for transport, tipping, and planning; (2) the method of dumping in compacted layers; and (3) the regular—at best daily—covering of the wastes with soil, ashes, or dirt in order to reduce vermin, smell, fires, and wind-blown litter. In addition, some forms of waste compaction were practiced, and scavengers were increasingly banned from the landfills’ territory.

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