Landfill

Understand landfill challenges, decomposition rates, and the environmental impact of waste disposal. Learn what happens to rubbish in landfills and why reducing what we send there matters for our planet.

How Waste is Sorted

Your recycling gets sorted through hand-picking, mechanical separation and specialised machines at waste facilities before it's sent for processing.

Incineration: An Alternative to Landfill

Incineration offers a practical way to dispose of waste that can't be recycled, with cost advantages over Britain's heavy reliance on landfills.

Keeping Green Waste Out of Landfills

Methane from rotting green waste in landfills is 25 times worse for the climate than CO2, but there are better ways to handle it.

Methane and Leachate: Landfill Problems

Buried waste in landfills produces methane and toxic leachate as it breaks down without oxygen, creating serious environmental hazards.

More Environmentally Friendly to Use Glass Milk Bottles?

Glass milk bottles create less waste than plastic over time, but cost and shipping make them less common today.

Nappies and the Environment

Disposable nappies create over half a million tons of UK waste yearly, with serious environmental costs from production to landfill breakdown.

What Happens to Our Waste?

The UK has around 10000 landfill sites filling up faster than expected, and the country is rapidly running out of space to bury its waste.