Suppose you live in a town with a population of 25,000 where the municipal waste

Question

Suppose you live in a town with a population of 25,000 where the municipal waste is sent to its own local landfill.

(a) If each resident generates 7 lbs of trash per day, how many pounds of waste are sent to the landfill each day?

(b) If the landfill operator is able to compact 45 lbs of trash into 1 ft which is typical, determine the volume of waste your town places in its landfill on a daily basis.

(c) To adequately cover the daily trash with soil it takes about 1 part soil to 4 parts trash (i.e., 1 ft of soil for every 4 ft of trash). How many cubic feet of soil would be required to cover the trash each day in your landfill?

(d) Calculate the total volume of trash and soil that would go into this landfill each day.

(e) Suppose that your landfill represents a rectangular excavation that is 900 feet long by 900 feet wide by 20 ft deep. How many years will it take for the landfill to become full?

Explanation / Answer

a) if each resident generates 7 pounds of trash per day and total population of the town is 25000 then total landfill sent each day=7*25000= 175000 lbs

b) 45 pounds of trash is compacted into 1 feet which is typical= 1*1*1 cubic feet= 1 ft3

therefore, 175000 lbs of waste on daily basis= 175000/45= 3888.89 ft3

c) since one part of soil is required to cover four parts of trash each day, so ratio of soil required =1/5 the of the total trash volume on daily basis

=1/5*3888.89

=777.778 ft3

d) since total trash volume each day= 3888.89 ft3

and one fifth of the volume is soil covers so total volume of trash and soil that would go into this landfill each day=3888.89-777.778= 3111.112 ft3 of trash and 777.778 ft3 of soil.

e) assumed rectangular excavation volume= 900*900*20 =16,200,000 ft3

since, daily muncipal waste= 175000 lbs =3888.89 ft3 of trash

therefore, time required to fill the landfill completely = 16200000/3888.89

= 4165.71 days

which is = 4165.71/365

= 11.41 years

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