In landfills, does all of the garbage eventually decompose?

Question

What about old couches, mattresses, huge plastic containers? Electronic items and the like? I was just wondering if anyone has this information to share. Thanks.

Answer 1

Yes eventually.But somethings take 150 years.some take even longer.Most couch and matress material will decompose rather quickly but the metal parts will take 75-100 years.Plastics take the longest although there are some plastics that will actually create it's own heat and catch fire and burn underground.styrofoam will do the same if packed tight.Most all landfills actually burn underground fires.these fires are caused by the heat of the decomposing materials.The two hardest things to decompose believe it or not is,tires and cigarette butts!

Answer 2

Everything will turn to dust in the end

Answer 3

Not in a modern landfill. It is in tombed in a clay and plastic mound so that no water will get in and leach the stuff into local ground water. Some does compost. Mostly the food garbage and other organic material. The methane is siphoned off for energy or burned off as waste.

Answer 4

At some point everything will decompose or at least turn to dust.  The problem is that in some cases it may take millions of years depending on the item.  In addition, some items like electronics contain hazardous chemicals that can pollute the water in the ground that flows to the water we drink.  You have to make sure you recycle as much as possible and dispose of items properly.

Answer 5

No, nothing decomposes to any significant extent in landfills.

Answer 6

it depends ont he type of material that is being dumped there, different materials have different decompostion times.

Answer 7

Many things will take hundreds of years to decompose (plastics, metals, etc.) but a lot of landfills are beginning to sort incoming waste to pull out as many recyclable materials as possible to reduce the overall waste introduced into the landfill.

Answer 8

No almost never...A few things will after hundreds of years not enough to make a difference though!