General Article The decomposition of waste in landfills

Topic Selected: Recycling Book Volume: 385
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A story of time and material.

By Rick Leblanc

From a sustainability perspective, it’s important to know how long it takes various types of garbage to decompose. We should focus our efforts especially on reducing the consumption of products that generate waste materials that take a long time to completely break down.

Let’s review how long it takes for various waste categories to decompose in landfills, along with some relevant statistics.

The rate of decomposition can depend on landfill condit...

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