Learn More About Landfills
Ever wondered where your trash goes? Once the garbage truck takes away your trash, it will probably go to the landfill. In the Green Team, Elijah visits his local landfill, and so can you! Many landfills offer educational tours for children like Elijah. The landfill is an area of land that we use to collect our trash. Imagine not having a landfill, then your house would be filled with trash!
America Alone
Did you know that every year Americans place over 134 million tons of garbage in landfills. Imagine 602 skyscrapers full of trash, or taking 1 out of every 3 cars in the entire United States, and putting all those cars in a big pile. Those piles would be around the same weight as the amount of garbage we throw into landfills every year.
On a Global Scale
The United States is definitely not the only country struggling with huge amounts of waste. This infographic by University of Georgia shows a worldwide view of plastic usage. Imagine 1 billion elephants or 820,000 Eiffel Towers!! That would weigh the same as plastic alone. You can see that 79% of these plastics are sent to the landfill.
Janet A Beckley, University of Georgia
Issues with the Landfill
You probably don’t think about garbage very often because of the landfill, but there are some problems in the landfill. One is that it takes away the homes of many animals. Imagine one day someone filled your house with trash and told you to leave! You would probably be very angry, and so are the poor animals. Another issue is pollution from the landfill. We will touch on this more in a later section!
Wasn’t that interesting?
When you’re ready, click below to continue Elijah’s journey!
Works Cited
"Landfills Lesson for Kids." Study.com, 21 October 2015,
Science X. “8.3 Billion Metric Tons: Scientists Calculate Total Amount of Plastics Ever Produced.” Phys.org, Phys.org, 19 July 2017,