A simple approach to solid waste planning for urbanizing counties.

摘要

Sound and effective land-use planning for solid waste management must ensure that suitable land be available for future landfills without encumbering anticipated development. Land-use planners in underdeveloped counties, experiencing urbanizing pressure, can utilize simple procedures to locate future waste disposal facilities. A simple option for landfill planning is the use of population and generalized waste characterization data to estimate landfill area. Land-use suitability for potential disposal sites can be evaluated using graphical overlays containing landfill siting criteria.; Cass County, Missouri (south of Kansas City) was used to illustrate the procedure for determining potential landfill size and assessing land-use suitability. Planners of urbanizing counties can use or adapt this procedure in conjunction with landfill data sources provided within the appendix. Graphical overlays, depicting landfill criteria, can be created using acetate plastic sheets that are superimposed to produce a final map depicting landfill suitability. Landfill design and location criteria that are easily accessible include geology, soils, floodplains, seismic hazards, transportation, and water quality.; Cass County's population, 63,808 in 1990, is expected to exceed 130,000 persons by the year 2025 due to urban sprawl from neighboring Jackson County and the Kansas City area. Using the average per capita waste generation rate for the last 10 years, population data can be converted into annual waste volume for disposal. Along with projected volume of waste, landfill density and design height assumptions can be used to derive landfill area. The population distribution of a county can also be used to estimate the location of the center of waste production. Siting landfills within a reasonable radius from a county's waste center minimizes hauling distance, while ensuring a sense of fairness between small and large waste generating communities. A five-mile radius from the waste production center was used as a search area for potential landfill sites. Graphical landfill design criteria, transferred on several plastic overlays, were used to produce a final map that identified suitable land within the search area for landfill location.