How Is a Landfill Operated?
A landfill,such as the North Wake County Landfill,must be open and available every day.Customers are typically municipalities and construction companies,although residents may also use the landfill.
Near the entrance of the landfill is a recycling center where residents can drop off recyclable materials (aluminum cans,glass bottles,newspapers and paper products).This helps to reduce the amount of material in the landfill.Some of these materials are banned from landfills by law because they can be recycled.
As customers enter the site,their trucks are weighed at the scale house.Customers are charged tipping fees for using the site.The tipping fees vary from $10 to $40 per ton.These fees are used to pay for operation costs.The North Wake County Landfill has an operating budget of approximately $4.5 million,and part of that comes from tipping fees.
Along the site,there are drop-off stations for materials that are not wanted or legally banned by the landfill.A multi-material drop-off station is used for tires,motor oil,lead-acid batteries.Some of these materials can be recycled.
In addition,there is a household hazardous waste drop-off station for chemicals (paints,pesticides,other chemicals)that are banned from the landfill.These chemicals are disposed of by private companies.Some paints can be recycled and some organic chemicals can be burned in furnaces or power plants.
Other structures alongside the landfill are the borrowed area that supplies the soil for the landfill,the runoff collection pond and methane (甲烷)station.
Landfills are complicated structures that,when properly designed and managed,serve an important purpose.In the future,new technologies called bioreactors will be used to speed the breakdown of trash in landfills and produce more methane.
1. The passage gives a general description of the structure and use of a landfill.
2. Most of the trash that Americans generate ends up in landfills.
3. Compared with other major Industrialized countries,America buries a much higher percentage of its solid waste in landfills.
4. Landfills are like compost piles in that they speed up decomposition of the buried trash.
5. In most countries the selection of a landfill site is governed by rules and regulations.
6. In the United States the building of landfills is the job of both federal and local governments.
7. Hazardous wastes have to be treated before being dumped into landfills.
8. Typical customers of a landfill are __________________.
9. To dispose of a ton of trash in a landfill,customers have to pay tipping fee of ____________.
10. Materials that are not permitted to be buried in landfills should be dumped at ____________.
Unit 1
1. Y 2. Y 3. N 4. N 5. Y 6. N 7. NG
8. municipalities and construction companies
9. $10 to $40 10.drop—off stations
更多内容进入: