Titans of Trash
Source: Heather Rogers, The Nation, December 19, 2005
....... King George looks like any typical modern-day garbage landfill, except it's not. Atop this grass-cloaked trash butte is a ten-acre parcel dedicated to research and development on the next generation of sanitary landfills, known in the industry as the "bioreactor." This facility pumps enormous volumes of toxic liquids into the guts of the landfill to speed the decomposition of organic materials, which will hasten the dump's settling and make more room for discards. The bioreactor's intensified decaying also forces a sharp spike in methane gas, a natural byproduct of biodegradation. This is a problem because methane is a serious global warming threat
...... The corporations that handle much of the country's garbage today make their money in direct proportion to the amount that gets thrown away: the more trash, the more cash. In fact, these companies earn the highest profits from castoffs that get landfilled; burying rubbish generates more before-tax income than all other waste company operations combined. And since organic items make up almost two-thirds of all landfilled waste, these firms would stand to lose vast profits if those discards were diverted to, say, a composting program. Bioreactor technology, by contrast, is designed to maintain maximum flows of discards into the ground.
According to David Kirkpatrick, managing director of a Durham, North Carolina, firm that invests in clean technologies: "Clearly, [for-profit landfill operators] will make more money the more tons that come in. Any front-end separation for composting reduces the volumes going into the landfill, and that reduces revenues."