Devine Caroline's article on how long trash really lasts.

The bit that caught my eye was on page 2, where they were talking about how long an applecore could last, or yard waste.  These landfills are essentially carbon sinks.  Taking carbon that was in plants, and putting it away underneath the earth.

Among the "crazy" ideas I've seen, one was to take woodchips/sawdust/etc, and bury them in the desert.

Landfills seem to do the exact same thing, until we dig them up.

In the future, within 100 years, I fully expect us to start using landfills as resources.  The amount of "trash" that's in there, is made up of plastics, metals, organics, etc.  The metals are reusable. Eventually it'll be cheaper to "mine" the trash heaps rather than dig the material out of the earth.  Think of it as a long term form of recycling.

As for the carbon sink element, that's what landfills are doing right now.  Locking away carbon so it can't get into the atmosphere.