Metal Recycling Directory

Junkyards vs. Landfills

There are a lot of junked cars available in the world. These cars can end up either in a junkyard where the old parts are disassembled and the usable parts are rebuilt to be used in other cars or for other purposes. A landfill, on the other hand, is an area which is used to dispose of all kind of wastes, including junk cars. At some point in time, a junkyard can be turned to an unspecialized landfill as parts from the junked products are unintentionally buried in the ground. This is especially true in older or poorly run yards; surveys have been done in the US on property that still contains metals and waste material from work that was done in a building, yard or shop that was demolished on that land 50 years earlier or more.

Level of Safety

In the situation where a junkyard is turned into a landfill, it means that the junked parts of a car are been buried into the ground with all the chemicals that they contain. These chemicals include new and old lead batteries with acids, gasoline and other fuels, and other toxins that come into direct contact with soil in the ground. This can be dangerous as they may cause a lot of harmful effects on the environment. On the other hand, properly designed and maintained landfills can handle all type of waste, whether agriculture, industrial, medical, biological and other kinds of wastes. These have a protective lining to prevent these wastes from coming into contact with the soil.

How much they can handle

The size of the junkyard will determine the amount of junked products it can contain and thereby the amount of waste it will bury in the ground after years of operation. Since burying of the junk is generally done unintentionally and just a little amount of soil covers them, this means they can handle just a few products. However, in the case of landfills, they are engineered disposal systems which are dug deep in the ground to handle waste from a large area. It shows that the amount of waste a landfill can handle is far much larger as compared to the unintended burying of junk products in a junkyard, and that it may have a lot of different types of waste before they become full. Proper and diligent maintenance and care of the yard and landfill will remain a constant need throughout its existence.

Operational Cost

Though they are not intended for disposal of waste, junkyards are very much expensive to operate, as various aspects are required in their operations. They require staff or outside providers who need pay for disassembly operations, to rebuild the used junk products to be resold, to maintain the cost of equipment of scrapping these products, and much more. In the long run, it can become very costly.

This is as opposed to landfill which are relatively easy to operate. And with low operation costs, they do not need as many personnel, since they can focus exclusively on disposing of a product without worrying about whether or not someone will want to take a piece of it out for re-use. Landfills are developed for products going to dust, and not to another car or house.