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Solid Waste Landfills

NEWMOA formed a Solid Waste Landfill Workgroup in 2017 that focuses on issues related to operating and closed landfills in the Northeast. The Workgroup convenes state officials several times a year to discuss their programs and share information and strategies.

There are several thousand inactive MSWLFs in the northeast. Many of these were municipally-owned and unlined and stopped receiving waste after states imposed modern construction and operation requirements on MSWLFs over 30 years ago. Old waste continues to generate gas and leachate long after a landfill stops adding new waste. Therefore, states developed requirements to properly close a landfill, including: installing an engineered cap to protect against the release of hazardous constituents to the environment and a leachate and/or gas collection system. Unfortunately, some of these old landfills are still not properly closed and sometimes their location is forgotten. In addition, even when properly closed, landfill owners/operators do not always fulfill their requirements, and states have established programs to follow-up and ensure compliance.

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Program
Materials Management

Years Active
2017-present

NEWMOA Contact
Jennifer Griffith