York's Landfill Is Full

The landfill that most of our trash is sent to will reach its full capacity in 2025. What solutions are there to this problem? According to FOX43 News, the city plans to expand the landfill, continue trash burning and recycling, and potentially ship our trash elsewhere. The landfill’s website states that it will be able to accept trash for 5 more years, although they have also stated that it is likely they will close in the next two years. Once the landfill stops accepting more waste, “a final landfill capping system will be installed that consists of an engineered soil liner, cover soils, and a vegetation layer,” as stated on their website.

As this quote from Modern Landfill said, once the landfill reaches capacity, it will be sealed with plastic and buried. In most ‘retired’ landfills some trash will decompose, producing methane gas build-up. This gas can be harnessed for energy, but can also be harmful to the earth and people. Toxic waste can potentially leak and affect surrounding communities, too.

Obviously, despite these issues, we do need landfills, and we should be so grateful to Modern Landfill for the service they’ve provided to our community and the extent they’ve covered to protect the environment from our waste. However, the above paragraphs speak for themselves. Our world currently has a problem with the amount of waste we’re producing and unfortunately, York County is going to be facing the consequences of our actions very soon.

Short term solutions are good for the time being. However, there needs to be fundamental change in our society’s mindset about waste. Over consumption of single-use items will continue to happen until we start choosing to support businesses that are more eco-minded. No, it’s not all up to the individual to change the mind of big companies that are waste-producing machines. But here and now, in York, Pennsylvania, it’s time to adjust. Let’s not have to have our waste shipped to pollute another city. Let’s choose to reduce, reuse, refill, repurpose, and recycle our own waste.

Here at Refillism we see so many wonderful individuals working towards wasting less, and responsibly taking care of the trash they produce. So many customers are bringing in bottles to refill rather than tossing them, and as a community we’ve officially saved well over 4,000 bottles from entering the landfill through refilling alone. On top of that, customers are constantly asking questions about the best places to recycle certain items like fabric and Styrofoam. We even have people coming in who collect the plastic waste from their workspace to drop off at CRDC Global, and still others who bring co-workers by during their lunch hours to show them the perks of living an eco-friendly lifestyle. These small steps are adding up!

References:

L, Harri. Potential trash crisis looms over York County as landfill nears capacity. FOX43. https://www.fox43.com/article/news/local/trash-crisis-york-landfill-capacity/521-8e1d9149-4244-4b98-a4c7-762e50bca6cc

FAQs. Modern Landfill. https://modernlandfillpa.com/faq/

Landfills, Encyclopedia Entry. National Geographic. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/landfills/

M, Noel. York County has a problem: Where to put its trash. York Dispatch. https://www.yorkdispatch.com/story/news/local/2022/08/18/york-county-faces-limited-options-for-future-waste-disposal/10307439002/