The lack of new landfills is partly due to increased regulation in the permitting process for the creation of new facilities. While landfills were once little more than “rubber-stamped” into existence throughout much of the 20th century, environmental science matured in the latter third of the century and identified the true threat to water supplies (in particular) that emanated from landfills that were once assumed to be quite safe.

Many of the regulations passed in the 1990s caused an unprecedented number of landfills to simply shut down, rather than be held liable for updates and fines relating to past problems or updates required to continue on. As a result, the total number landfills decreased and, according to the “law” of supply and demand, the price to deposit in those existing landfills increased significantly.

In particular, many landfills that shut down before 1993, in an effort to avoid fines for water and soil pollution did so in such a rush that their efforts to contain the “final product” were grossly inadequate, leading to even higher costs that owners hoped to recoup from their remaining facilities.

The connection between recycling and alternative energy, aside from both being “green” solutions to waste and pollution problems, is political as well as personal. For instance, someone who is motivated to be passionate about recycling is likely to be an advocate of carbon-neutral power. This is true for governments as well as individuals. There are even technologies that can actually produced bio-fuel from previously landfilled materials such as plastic and organic-waste derived methane.