The bigger problem is everything that doesn't make it into the landfill, particularly the plastics that get into the water. The oceans have tons of plastic breaking down into smaller pieces that fish and birds and eat.

But how will these caterpillars help with that issue?

... That's why it's a problem.

We could try and replicate the degradation processs or find a similar one in the lab. Nature has often been an inspiration for new inventions such as burrs for Velcro.

I think the biggest issue people have with landfills is that it's basically banking on the things being dumped there not having an adverse effect on the environment, ground water, etc over a long period of time. Even if no one really knew/knows/ensures what is entirely safe to dump.

Yeah, I'm not sure why anyone would think burying waste underground is an okay solution. It made sense when most household waste was fabrics, wood, old food etc but nobody stopped quick enough to evaluate the impacts when our waste got more and more toxic and non-biodegradable. I've recently move to the Netherlands from the UK and was amazed to discover they don't recycle household metal items (e.g. soft drinks cans, food cans etc). That's been a staple of the recycle industry for as long as I can remember in the UK, maybe it's a business opportunity waiting to happen in Holland :)

A modern landfill is not like a landfill back then either, there's a lot of engineering that goes into it, it's not just a hole in the ground. You make it sound like no thought was given to the problem but municipal solid waste disposal is an entire science and engineering discipline.

There is room for improvement but I'm pretty ok with modern landfills. Methane capture IMO is the biggest lack. It's such a waste to let it pollute the atmosphere (at 30x the GHG potential of CO2) when you can capture it, scrub it and burn it for energy. Google says landfill gases account for about 10% of global GHG emissions.

(That's in North America, probably most of the world has woefully inadequate waste management solutions.)

It's clear there's not enough thought and resources going into preventing environmental problems but IMO landfills are not at the top of the list.

> I've recently move to the Netherlands from the UK and was amazed to discover they don't recycle household metal items

Wikipedia says metal cans are separated from regular trash (at the plant) to be recycled. It also says recycling in handled by municipalities so YMMV.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recycling_in_the_Netherlands

Interesting, well that is reassuring as nobody I asked in the Netherlands believed that they were recycled.

Regarding your early point, obviously there is a industry built around waste disposal - but the problem is still that we are creating types of waste that are destined for landfill. The fact there is this option to put it in the ground is a barrier to solutions for how we package our products, which chemicals we use, what we actively recycle etc.

Actually you can recycle a lot of metal items (soup cans, aluminum foil, etc) together with plastic. It might depend on your city but have a look here: http://www.plasticheroes.nl/wat (sorry Dutch only)

Depending upon the facility. Some places do quite a bit of sorting on trash. Especially things like metals. While they don't have a separate bin. They might still filter or export some components to be recycled?

In many places in Europe consumers separate their waste themselves prior to collection, Holland included. Any waste that hasn't been separated and is just in a rubbish sack and presumed to be non-recyclable and buried without being opened or sorted. The metal cans in Holland end up in the rubbish sacks and are buried forever along with non-recyclable plastics, food waste, nappies etc

Well... the Dutch are very enthusiastic for more landfills, I gather.

I guess it doesn't help that 1/3 of the country is below sea level...nowhere to dig

Mismanaged landfills can have some unpleasant effects on the surrounding environment, like smell in the air or seeping pollutants into groundwater.

Speaking of, don't they use plastic liners to keep the pollutants out of the groundwater? Filling landfills with a chemical to break down plastic could backfire badly.

pretty sure we could come up with another type of liner

It'd be an unusual landfill to start with, because caterpillars generally don't like anaerobic conditions. More like a compost pile that's kept well-aerated.

It seemed like there was a desire to mass produce the chemical that the caterpillar uses to dissolve the plastic, not to use actual caterpillars.

"I, for one, have never understood the problem with landfills. "

Says the person who doesn't have to live near a landfill.

Are advanced cities even allowed to have landfills in a residential area?

Mountain View (in the area nearest the bay) is a former landfill.

http://www.mountainview.gov/depts/pw/landfill.asp

I only mean to point out that although it may not be "allowed in the present," these problems last a lot longer than it takes for humans to move in to the area, or write new laws.

The misnamed Shoreline Amphitheater and the golf course are built on the old landfill site.

Events early in Shoreline's history had a problem with the lawn catching fire due to the uncontrolled seepage of methane from under the lawn (as a decay biproduct). Sort of the "everybody-hold-up-your-lighter-for-mood" effect, but uncontrolled.

Think of all the carbon that is sequestered because of landfills. Makes you think twice when recycling paper products.

This. Recycling is important, and the net value must be properly calculated (how much you spend producing paper, recycled paper, and which one ends consuming more CO2, for a specific area, since the impact isn't the same everywhere).

But sometimes producing new paper must be beneficial.

There was interesting segment on NPR discussing paper recycling. Most of our paper comes from tree farms and because of the lack of demand of paper these tree farms are converting to farming other crops which are lot less environmentally and wildlife friendly.

This is interesting, to someone not well informed in this, how do landfills sequester carbon?

Burying paper or other organic items. In a sense your recreating the fossil fuel cycle.

Part of the problem is it is not just the expected trash that is buried there. I've seen people taking plenty of old electronics, batteries and all kinds of other toxic stuff and nobody is really checking a lot of what makes it in there (especially when you haul in a trailer load of demo stuff and just dump it off).

Landfills are basically now the worlds largest plastic bags. Basically a least a foot of clay at the bottom (which liquids flow slowing through), then sheets of HDPE plastic welded together to make a (hopefully) watertight surface. Usually they have pipes to collect whatever leaches through the trash. In NY being not trusting sorts... they double line their landfills with 2 layers of liner.

Then when its filled you put a layer of plastic and soil on the top to stop water from getting in.

Its not perfect, but it seems to be ok. Nothing rots in there since there is hardly any moisture and the off gassing is who knows what (sometimes they burn it, so it has some methane).

Wikipedia lists some problems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landfill#Social_and_environmen...

There is also the problem that the trash can get spilled all over the environment during storms.

Landfills are actually not that bad of an idea. If we someday find a way to recycle that stuff we can just dig it up again and use it. If a caterpillar eats it who knows where it ends up. In the water? In the ground? In our food? In our blood?

If I understand correctly, the idea is they're dissolving the plastic into different chemicals which presumably don't have the toxic qualities that make plastic so concerning.

>If a caterpillar eats it who knows where it ends up. In the water? In the ground? In our food? In our blood?

That assumes landfills are hermetically sealed systems, they are not. We have plenty of examples where landfills contaminated the groundwater and with it large swaths of ground. It's an irresponsible practice that's pretty much based on the naive principle of "out of sight out of mind".

If the goal is to recycle it's far more advantageous to actually recycle and not mix all the garbage in a giant mess, just to hide it in some hole in the ground. That makes the job of recycling just that much more difficult because you have to pick all the stuff apart and make sure you got everything out of the ground.

> We have plenty of examples where landfills contaminated the groundwater and with it large swaths of ground.

The old "dumps" had this problem. Modern landfills with liners, leachate management, etc. are probably the best way to handle garbage, out of all the possible options. It's simply not possible or even practical to recycle everything.

Many of those "old dumps" were either exempted or grandfathered from the 1991 implemented federal rules for groundwater quality. The liners sure do help, but they are only a temporary fix because "it's widely recognized that even the best installed plastic liner will succumb to deterioration and eventually will allow leachate to be created and released." [0]

I also never said anything about recycling everything, but at least putting some effort into recycling would already go a long way. According to EPA data [1], the majority of municipal waste disposed of in US landfills is made up of organic materials: 29% paper and paperboard, 27% yard trimmings and food scraps. That's 56% of the landfill of which much could be recycled instead of just being dumped, with composting people can even recycle some of that stuff themselves at home and get some quality fertilizer out of it.

The only thing stopping this from happening is the laziness of people who rather want to dump all their garbage into a single bin/bag and be done with it because waste separation is not considered "practical", even tho there are plenty of countries who've practiced it very successfully for years already and as such are leading the "recycling race"[2].

[0]http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/La-Mi/Landfills-Impact-on-G...

[1]https://archive.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/municipal/web/pdf/ms...

[2]https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2016/03/04/the-co...

One of the better solutions, but nobody wants a landfill near them.

They're disgusting.

The buffer zone around a landfill doesn't have to be that large. A couple kilometres and you're good to go. less if you put some industrial at the edge of the buffer instead of residential.

In Victoria, BC they've taken that buffer around their landfill and built some pretty great mountain bike trails. Whenever I'm out there I always go for a ride at the dump.

Decent number of golf courses got built over landfills. Don't have to be disgusting when we are done filling.

In a small town my parents live in they opened a park with a large hill, originally landfill, and the kids tobaggon on it every year. One of the most popular destinations in the town during winter. So agreed it's not all bad and destructive.

Visit one sometime, they are quite clean actually.

with plants on top after a while (and sealed properly) ...

My problem with landfills is that it's so inefficient. Particularly for things like wood waste or construction demolition, it makes a lot more sense to grind it, burn it, and make power from it, then bury the much smaller amount of ash that is left over.

It's better for the environment to bury wood unburnt. Burning it will release carbon back into the atmosphere. Burying the tree will re-sequester the carbon.

As for grinding it, that's a question of whether the space saved by grinding up the wood is worth it versus just digging/finding a bigger hole.

It's probably better to turn it into charcoal first otherwise gasses like methane will eventually seep out. If you use these gases to fuel the carbonisation, then it will be CO2 neutral.