The first municipal waste site in Western Civilization is believed to have been established around 500 B.C. in Athens, Greece. The Council of Athens issued an edict prohibiting the dumping of garbage within one mile of the city wall. American landfills were preceded by disposal areas similar to those of ancient Greece. No efforts were made to compact or cover trash at these unregulated town dumps . Over the last few decades, these dumps have been replaced with sanitary landfills which are sophisticated in design and regulated in every aspect, from siting to filling to closing.
Landfills are the most widely used solid waste management option.
In 1995, there were approximately 2,500 landfills in America into which we put approximately 57 percent of our municipal solid waste. Modern landfills are constructed with a number of safeguards, and new federal standards active in 1993 require landfills to have liners, leachate collection facilities, and gas monitoring systems. While these regulations offer more safeguards, they also have resulted in landfill closings and increased user costs or tipping fees. Today landfill wastes are systematically divided into smaller units called cells. By isolating small working sections of the facility, cell structures minimize waste exposure to weather elements.