Question - Are Plastics Hazardous When Buried In Land-fills?
Answer -
NO. Plastic waste is pre-dominantly eco-neutral or inert. It does not generate toxic leachates which contaminate the soil or ground water resources. On the contrary, those products which do biodegrade with by-products,may result in contaminating ground water resources.
Plastic consumer waste is easily compactible, and occupies less space inland-fills.
The fact that plastic waste is inert and does not biodegrade, makes segregation and recycling a more logical approach to waste managment, for urban areas.
The famous study on excavation of New York's land-fills by the University of Arizona, U.S.A., reveals that fooditems, such as beef-stakes, corn-on-cob, news papers - things which you might expect to biodegrade in a fewyears, are in recognisable form after 30 years. This is because, anaerobic biodegradation (in the absence of airand sun-light) is an extremely slow process. This process also generates methane gas from land-fills - which for its "green-house" effect is worse than carbon dioxide.