Rhode Island’s biggest landfill is expected to fill up by 2043. And there are about 100 inactive landfills across the state. This made us wonder, what can be done with closed landfills?

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

Here in Rhode Island, our biggest landfill is expected to fill up by 2043. And there are about 100 inactive landfills across the state. Which made us wonder, what happens when these places close?

We had Possibly reporters Iman Khanbhai and Charlie Adams look into this question.

Iman Khanbhai: Hi Megan!

Charlie Adams: Cheers!

Megan Hall: Hey guys! Ok, so tell me— what happens to landfills when they’re too full to hold any more trash?

Charlie Adams: Good question. The basic answer is they get capped, meaning covered with something that hopefully isolates the nasty stuff below from whatever is on top.  But the more interesting answer is about what can come after a landfill is capped.

Iman Khanbhai: To find out more, we talked to Kasie Mackenzie.

Kasie Mackenzie: My name is Kasie Mackenzie, I work at Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management.

Iman Khanbhai: Kasie dedicates most of her work to dealing with the closure, permitting, and oversight of landfills in and around Rhode Island.

Charlie Adams: She says, before new regulations that were passed in the 90s, Rhode Island was less choosy about where cities and towns should put their trash. So, there were small landfills all over the state.

Iman Khanbhai: But now, all the state’s trash goes to official waste management sites, and those old landfills can’t be used for anything else until their owners go through an official process.

Kasie Mackenzie: They have to kind of go through a closure with our department, which deals with a lot of permitting and kind of like an investigation of the site.

Megan Hall: What does that investigation look like?

Iman Khanbhai: They check to make sure landfills can support something being built on top of them, and talk to people in the community about potential environmental and health risks associated with the properties.

Charlie Adams: And they also work to give these landfills a new life – turning them into solar farms. Kasie says DEM has put a lot of energy into making that process easier.

Kasie Mackenzie: The department is kind of a big proponent of solar on landfills, so we wanted to make it so that there is kind of one place people could go to look at all this information.

Iman Khanbhai: Kasie says there are a few things to consider when it comes to making this transition. First, the landfills have to be covered securely so harmful chemicals don’t leak out.

Charlie Adams: And landfills turned into solar farms have to be particularly careful about gasses like methane that form when trash breaks down.

Kasie Mackenzie: Anytime you have explosive gasses near you know electrical equipment, there’s a chance for an explosion. So we have to manage landfill gas in a way that you know it doesn’t come near any hazardous or any situation that can cause a spark and ignite.

Iman Khanbhai: So covered landfills need to have systems that collect this gas and make sure it can’t start an explosion! This has the added benefit of keeping that gas out of the air where it would contribute to climate change.

Megan Hall: Has Rhode Island turned any of its old landfills into solar farms yet?

Charlie Adams: Yes. Kasie says that the department has five different solar projects and a few more in the process. Right now, landfill solar farms generate about 24 megawatts of power. That’s roughly the amount of electricity to power 20,000 homes at the same time.

Iman Khanbhai: We asked Kasie what she sees for the future of her job and this industry.

Kasie Mackenzie: Right now solar companies are really kind of active in pursuing contaminated land for installing solar so I think I mean, if I wanted to, I could stay at the job for the rest of my career and closed landfills endlessly.

Megan Hall: So, what’s the take-away here?

Charlie Adams: The best way to manage landfills is to throw out less stuff. But! There are ways dirty landfills of the past can be a part of a cleaner future.

Iman Khanbhai: And we’re going to have to cover a lot more rooftops, parking lots and other open space in addition to landfills if RI is going to generate a lot of its electricity from solar.

Megan Hall: Got it. Thanks Iman and Charlie.

That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org.

You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn or X at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and The Public’s Radio.

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Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall. 

Today, we’re revisiting food waste. As we’ve said in some of our other episodes, the best way to tackle food waste is to prevent it in the first place. But, when it does come time to toss your kitchen scraps, where should they go?

We had Fatima Husain and Ashley Junger from our Possibly Team look into this. 

Fatima Husain: Hi, Megan! 

Ashley Junger: Hello! 

Megan Hall: So, Fatima, to start us off – where do our food scraps go when we toss them? 

Fatima Husain: After scraping your plate or the cutting board, your food can end up in one of three places: your trash bin, the sink disposal, or in compost. 

Ashley Junger: And each of these destinations are associated with different environmental impacts, like releasing greenhouse gases such as methane. 

Megan Hall: We’ve spoken a bit about methane before on Possibly – can you remind us how it’s associated with food waste? 

Fatima Husain: Of course, To do that, let’s think about landfills – the place where food ends up if you put it in the trash. After about a few weeks at the dump, that food gets buried and is no longer exposed to open air. 

Ashley Junger: And when that happens, microbes break down that buried food into methane, a greenhouse gas which, in the short term, warms the planet 80 times more than carbon dioxide does. 

Megan Hall: Got it. So, food waste in landfills eventually ends up as greenhouse gases in the atmosphere? 

Fatima Husain: Yes, though at some landfills, some of that gas is collected and used for energy. In Rhode Island, for example, landfill gas from the Central Landfill is captured and converted to electricity. 

Ashley Junger: In 2023, there were nearly 500 landfills with landfill gas energy projects in the United States, with about 100 more planned or underway. 

Fatima Husain: But even a landfill with methane capture can’t catch all of it. A recent report from the EPA estimated that over sixty percent of methane produced by landfill food waste isn’t captured and still makes it to the atmosphere. 

Megan Hall: Got it. So the trash isn’t a great option. What about sink disposal? 

Ashley Junger: When your scraps go into your sink disposal, they’re shredded up and travel through sewer pipes to your local water treatment plant. 

Fatima Husain: On the way to the plant, microbes can start breaking those shredded scraps down into methane. 

Ashley Junger: And then at the treatment facility, food wastes become part of sewage sludge. Depending on where you live, that sludge can end up in your local landfill, burned, turned into fertilizer, or processed for methane capture. 

Fatima Husain: But just like with landfill gas energy projects, not all wastewater facilities have systems in place to capture methane. In fact, most don’t. 

Ashley Junger: A recent study out of Princeton showed that wastewater treatment plants in the US emit nearly two times more methane than scientists previously thought. It’s about the same amount of methane that landfills produce.

Megan Hall: Wow – so what about composting? 

Fatima Husain: Compared to the methane emissions associated with landfilling or your kitchen sink, compost is by far the best place for your food waste to end up. 

Ashley Junger: During the composting process, microbes interact with food in the presence of air, which contains oxygen. When oxygen’s around, microbes break down food into carbon dioxide, not methane. 

Fatima Husain: More and more cities including New York, Seattle and San Francisco have implemented municipal composting.  

Ashley Junger: And even more have pick-up composting available by third parties. 

Fatima Husain: Of course, if you have a backyard, or even a bin under your sink, you can compost your own food waste, turn it into nutritious soil, and keep heat-trapping methane out of our air.

Megan Hall: Great! Thanks, Fatima and Ashley!

That’s it for today. For more information, or to ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, go to thepublicsradio.org/possibly. Or subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also follow us on Instagram, Facebook or X at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and the Public’s Radio.

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