The Decomposition of Waste in Landfills

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

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.

Disposable Diapers

In the United States alone, about 3.3 million tons of disposable diapers were thrown away in 2018.

These disposable diapers take approximately 250-500 years to decompose in landfills, thus underscoring the importance of programs offering diaper and absorbent hygiene product recycling.

Aluminum Cans

About 42.7 billion aluminum cans, over 81,000 cans per minute, were recycled in America in 2019.But at the same time, in every three-month period in the U.S.enough aluminum cans and packaging are thrown away—2.66 billion tons in 2018—to rebuild the entire American commercial air fleet.Aluminum cans take 80-100 years in landfills to completely decompose.

Plastic Waste

Plastic products are very common in our modern life. According to the Pacific Institute, we used approximately 17 million barrels of oil just for producing plastic water bottles in 2006.Plastic waste is one of many types of wastes that take too long to decompose. Normally, plastic items can take up to 1,000 years to decompose in landfills. Even plastic bags we use in our everyday life take anywhere from 10 to 1,000 years to decompose, and plastic bottles can take 450 years or more.

Paper Waste

Paper is the largest element in American municipal solid waste.Normally, it takes two to six weeks in a landfill to get completely decomposed, but can take decades, depending on moisture levels within the landfill.Recycling paper items saves a lot of landfill space while also reducing the energy and virgin material usage demanded by making non-recycled paper. Recycling paper items saves a lot of landfill space while also reducing the energy and virgin material usage demanded by making non-recycled paper.

Glass

Glass is normally very easy to recycle due to the fact that it's made of sand. By simply breaking down the glass and melting it, we can produce new glass. But the shocking fact is that if glass is thrown away in landfills, it takes a million years to decompose. And according to some sources, it doesn't decompose at all.

Food Waste

Food is the second largest waste item in American landfills.The time taken for food waste decomposition depends on the type of food. Normally, an orange peel takes six months, while an apple core takes around two months, and a banana peel takes two to 10 days, to decompose.Composting and food waste recycling are great ways to divert food waste away from landfills.

Final Note

The increasing volume of waste is a major concern for humans and the environment. The best way to deal with this problem is to avoid products that generate waste materials that take more than a year to decompose in landfills. Every household and organization should also have a proactive plan for recycling to divert more materials away from the waste stream.