A county or regional landfill should provide enough area for how many years of operation?

• A. 5-10 years
• B. 10-15 years
• C. 20-40 years
• D. 60-100 years

Answer: (C)

Planning a landfill revolves around sizing space to hold the expected waste for a practical operating life. Operators estimate how much waste will arrive each year, how densely it can be placed (with compaction and daily cover), and how high the waste will be permitted to rise under design and regulatory limits. Because conditions change over time and there’s a need to ensure funds and plans for closure and post-closure care, a county or regional landfill is typically designed to have enough area to accommodate about twenty to forty years of waste. Shorter timeframes would force frequent expansions or early closures, increasing costs and risk; much longer horizons introduce uncertainty about future waste generation and regulations, making the design less reliable. So the usual planning window is in that twenty-to-forty-year range.