Those involved in its design will also take into account current international standards and regulations. Modern landfills are lined to contain the waste and capped to manage rainwater infiltration and gas emissions. Extensive monitoring systems are put in place to ensure that the landfill operates as designed. Old style dumps or rubbish tips with associated vermin, mud, dust, smells and high contamination risks are no longer permitted. Before deciding on the landfill option, the Canterbury Waste Joint Standing Committee also looked at incineration, bio-digestion, and neutralysis.
Incineration involves burning the waste.
This method is used mostly in Europe and some parts of North America and Asia, where land for landfilling is scarce and costly. New air pollution standards make incineration plants expensive to build and operate. The cost for Canterbury of a suitable plant would be substantially higher. Incineration produces significant amounts of toxic ash and a landfill of even higher standard is still needed to dispose of this. Bio-digestion involves breaking down the organic waste without oxygen, but like composting it still leaves 40 per cent of the waste stream that is inorganic waste needing disposal.