Landfill disposal in developing countries

Landfill is one of the most preferred technologies for waste treatment in the developing world, but also in the industrialised countries is still a widely used facility. In the last decade the new concept of sustainable landfilling has been promoted as a possibility to close safely the loop of materials, to dispose the not recyclable or not recoverable residues reducing the impacts by a generation time (30 years). The sustainable landfilling doesn’t relay only on passive physical barriers and its design considers a series of possible pretreatment, on site or postclosure actions to decrease the potential pollution of the deposited waste and thus reducing the longterm emissions. The implementation of the sustainable landfilling in developing countries can effectively improve the poor waste management if included in the broader approach that refers to the 3Ss: Sanitisation, to improve the standards of living achieving basic rules of hygiene in waste management; Subsistence economy, returning waste to the economy as a resource considering the spontaneous recycling; Sustainable landfilling integrating low cost solutions, easily-implemented technologies, and maximum utilisation of natural resources and in situ materials.