Processes intended to decontaminate noxious liquid landfill waste before it enters rivers and sewers have been found to increase the levels of some of the worst toxic chemicals, a study has shown.
Landfills are well known to be a main source of PFAS forever chemicals – or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – but the new study shows that the treatment plants designed to clean up the liquid waste can instead boost the levels of banned PFAS such as PFOA and PFOS, in some cases by as much as 1,335%.
PFAS are a family of about 15,000 human-made chemicals with nonstick properties that are used in a wide range of consumer products and industrial processes. They can take thousands of years to break down in the environment and the handful that have been studied in detail have been found to be toxic, with PFOA and PFOS linked to cancers and other diseases. PFAS pollution is widespread, having been found in the remotest parts of the world, and it is thought every US citizen has it in their blood.
I can not imagine how anyone who has ever looked at a landfill did so and went, “Yup, this is a good idea.” The sheer volume of trash is unsettling. The corporations that popularized wrapping everything in disposable plastic have doomed us.
Most modern landfills have a liner to prevent toxic contents from leaking into the water table, etc.
I won’t be surprised if/when:
- more efforts are made to keep glass, paper, and metals like iron and aluminum out of landfills
- plastics end up being incinerated in power plants instead of “recycled” going forward
- we eventually start digging up old landfills for the minerals they contain and to “re-line” and/or incinerate their contents
