{"id":571,"date":"2020-10-14T21:57:08","date_gmt":"2020-10-14T21:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/wordpress\/?page_id=571"},"modified":"2020-10-14T21:57:08","modified_gmt":"2020-10-14T21:57:08","slug":"etq-landfills","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/etq-landfills","title":{"rendered":"Economic Thought Question – What if we eliminated Landfills?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Marshall Brain<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today’s thought question involves landfills: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What would be the economic effect if we completely eliminated landfills and recycled everything?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Large-scale municipal landfills are a relatively new invention. The first modern sanitary landfill was created in Fresno, California in 1937 [ref<\/a>]. Today there are thousands of active landfills all over the United States. Each American creates approximately 4.4 pounds of trash every day, and a majority of it ends up being buried in a landfill somewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We pay for all those landfills through our property taxes. A typical landfill costs $20 million or more to build, plus millions of dollars per year to operate. In most cases, all of that money comes from local taxpayers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can see the effects that landfills have on our thinking nearly everywhere you go. For example, if you buy a pancake breakfast at McDonald’s, you will throw away:<\/p>\n\n\n\n