[ars]

Why focus just on global warming? Water shortage is a far far far larger problem. I know it's not you, but this obsession with global warming is horrible. There are far worse problems.

And landfill space is infinite. The earth is enormous. There are just political objections to landfills so they keep them in short supply. For example you could fill old coal mines with landfill and never run out of space. You could undo mountaintop removal by filling it with dilute garbage, then a deep layer of topsoil.

There really is an infinite amount of space - we can't make more garbage than there is matter on the earth. So whatever material we make, we automatically have room to bury it.

[pbhjpbhj]

The linked analysis is really good and considers water usage. Water is also used to create disposable nappies as well as irrigating cotton plantations.

>And landfill space is infinite. The earth is enormous.

Landfill pollutes, run-off kills wildlife and poisons water supplies. Methane produced, as well as other decomposition gases (eg mercury bearing or radioactive gases) makes close habitation a problem. Of course methane is currently related to adverse global climate change and landfill is one (if not the?) largest source of human-produced methane.

Topsoil is certainly not limitless either, good topsoil is costly; it takes time and a proper mix of organic matter to make. You can hide your non-degradable plastics and heavy metal contaminant laced electronics under as big a heap of topsoil as you like, they're not going to magically turn into soil nutrients.

[ars]

There are no mercury or radioactive gases from a landfill. Cattle is a larger source of methane. And there a LOT of it released naturally, human sources are very small in comparison.

And none of the other things you mentioned prevent making landfills. Every landfill has those problem. People talk as if we are going to run out of space - we aren't.

Use the exact same methods we use now to make a few extra landfills. They aren't even that expensive.

Of all the things you can do to help the environment, not filling landfills is the least effective.