“Actually, leachate management is one of the biggest costs of running a facility like this.”
Puente Hills outside Los Angeles took trash from 1957 to 2013 and peaked at about 4 million tons a year. Its gas plant powers around 70,000 homes. Owners have to keep caring for a closed landfill for at least 30 years. A $20 monthly trash bill buys decades of pumping toxic runoff out of a hill nobody wants to think about.