Burning or Landfill: Which Is Better for Your Yard Waste?
An economic debate has been happening all over the world regarding the best method of disposing of yard waste. The traditional method of the landfill is faced with a strong adversary which is the incineration of yard waste. Both parties are quite efficient in their own way in yard waste management and disposal, but it is better to know the pros and cons for each yard waste disposal technique in order to better understand each method and decide which is much better. Though both ways have their own differences, it sometimes begs to question if humankind can just have both, or is there really a need to choose between the two?
Pros and cons of burning yard waste
Burning or incineration is the method of disposing of yard waste through burning the waste from a district, city, town, or county, and it is seen as the best alternative to landfills.
Pros
Waste management
Incineration promotes better waste management since it is capable of burning up to 90% of the total yard waste from one whole area. This process is way better than landfills because landfills can only cater to organic decomposition, and the nonorganic and artificial wastes still exist, and the numbers keep piling up.
Reduced dependency on landfills
Incineration makes it possible to eliminate the dependency on landfills. When yard waste is burned, there is no more waste to pile up, and no need to look for new landfills. Eventually, a town, city, district, or county will have no space anymore for landfills, and incineration of yard waste is more efficient in eliminating garbage without a trace. Without landfills, many things can be done to the supposed to be landfill locations, like build a new building structure for the people.
Cost-effective
Using landfills costs a lot of time, energy, and money because the yard waste from every home needs to be collected and will be transported to the designated landfill which is usually hundreds of miles away from the source of waste. With incineration, the burning process can be done within close proximity to the source of the yard wastes. This process is definitely cost-effective since there is no need to transport yard waste anymore to a long-distance location.
Byproduct Energy
Energy can be a useful byproduct of incineration since incineration plants efficiently produce energy from yard waste. This waste energy can be used to help residents in the area as a source of heat or electricity.
Unpolluted groundwater
With incineration, the groundwater is safe from toxic elements that landfills normally create. Incineration will not produce any harmful chemicals that will contaminate the groundwater as landfills can.
Cons
Expensive
Incineration plants are quite expensive, as an infrastructure building must be built in order to have the right facility to process the incineration method. There must be full-time manpower to run the plant and keep the incinerators operational.
Not environment-friendly
Incineration produces smoke that contains nitrogen oxide, heavy metals, carcinogen dioxin, particulates, and acid gases that can be harmful to the environment, and thus can cause harm to people around the incineration plants.
Discourages recycling
Incineration disheartens recycling, as all yard waste is getting burned in incineration plants. Burning yard waste also discourages waste reduction, since people will not care anymore about reducing their waste because all their yard waste can be burned. With landfills, homeowners and every individual are wary of the quantity of waste they have due to the full landfills.
Pros and cons of landfill for yard waste
A landfill is a traditional method of disposing of yard waste by efficiently burying all the collected yard wastes between the layers of the earth. Landfills are intended to lessen the public health hazards that are a result of decaying refuse. Landfills have been used for decades all over the world, and landfills are becoming full and scarce since the population on earth increases every year. Old landfills are open holes that are left open to accommodate more yard waste, and newer landfills use huge containers to contain the yard wastes and those containers are buried into the ground. However, both the old and the new landfill methods are prone to leakage of harmful toxins from the decay of yard waste.
Pros
Convenience
The landfill has always been the way of disposing of yard wastes for many decades. It is a convenient method in terms of the availability of landfills all over the world, and it is a proven method that works in waste disposal.
Byproduct energy
Confined landfills exist mostly in areas where human habitation or farmland is at a safe distance. These kinds of landfills can positively produce eco-friendly energy that can be used to power up facilities or homes. The energy is created through the exuded carbon dioxide and methane that are harnessed from the landfills to produce the needed energy.
Clean
The knowledge of landfills keeps people from littering their yard waste on the roads. Knowing that there are landfills keep homeowners manage their yard waste and dump them in the appropriate area to be picked up for dumping into landfills.
Safer
Landfills are safer than incinerators when it comes to the production of toxic byproducts. Though landfills exude harmful chemicals, the hazardous chemicals from burning are much more damaging.
Cons
Pile up of toxic waste
Landfills are making toxic waste accumulate and pile up, which will mix with snow or water that can contaminate groundwater, can result in dangerous health issues, and can damage crops.
Methane problem
Landfills emanate methane, which is a harmful chemical that can cause chronic and terminal diseases to humans. Methane is an issue that can significantly injure the eco-system. It is also susceptible to fire and it can easily burn, causing fire on landfills.
Exude gases
The old landfills are open huge holes, and toxic waste in a form of gas can come from the holes and cause harm to the eco-system and to human beings.