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Before you can bring trash to a landfill, a "cell" must be developed and lined to protect groundwater from any liquids that might leak out of the trash. In 1993, an EPA mandate went into effect, that going forward, landfills must be lined before they can accept trash.
It's an amazing sight - the creation and lining of a brand new "cell" at Corralitos Landfill.

Corralitos is the landfill where most of the trash from Las Cruces and Doña Ana County ends up. Five days a week, 20 to 25 semi-trucks of solid waste are shipped to Corralitos for disposal in the landfill. That's 500-600 tons of trash every week day.

Corralitos is located on a 600-acre parcel of land along I-10, about 15 miles west of Las Cruces, and surrounded by ranchland.

Driving past on the freeway, if you happen to glance over to the south, you see what looks like a sandhill. That's Corralitos Landfill, which contains 2 million tons (2,000,000 tons) of trash to date.

Corralitos was first opened in June 1995, and is perfectly sited to not only serve our population, but also protect groundwater - the most critical aspect of managing trash. The state of New Mexico requires that a landfill "cell" be at least 100 feet above the nearest groundwater; Corralitos is 600 feet from the nearest groundwater.

A landfill is not just a big hole in the ground, it is a highly engineered and planned disposal site that:

1) manages any liquids that drain down through the waste by means of a leachate collection system.


Liquids include everything from rainwater to milk or bleach in thrown-away containers;

2) the landfill slopes are constructed over time at the perfect angle to best stabilize the tons of trash and daily cover (dirt that is brought in all day long to hold the trash in place during blowing winds while suppressing odors from decomposing organics in the trash);

3) landfilling is the best, most cost-effective option for managing trash in our part of the country, with our population size.

Before any trash is brought in, a "cell" must be developed. The new cell at Corralitos is 10 acres in size.

Danita Boettner, Project Engineer and Quality Assurance manager, explained, "We only develop and line a cell about every 5 years. Today we have 10 acres of base grade (highly compacted ground), topped with a light gray geo-synthetic clay liner as a secondary backup to prevent any migrating liquid. The black 60ml High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) is an incredibly heavy-duty plastic liner that goes on top as the primary protection against leachate migration."

At the seams, the HDPE is melted together ("welded"), and the huge 10-acre liner is anchored in trenches along each side of the cell, to keep them from ever moving.

Finally, two feet of sand is placed on top of the 10-acre cell as a medium that is used in the leachate collection system. Liquids migrate through the sand to the piping system below. The sand also protects the liners from the heavy duty equipment used to crush, compact and compress the garbage, making the landfill space that contains our garbage go absolutely as far as possible.

If you think about it, almost everything you purchase, once it's useful life is spent, will end up being recycled or someday go in a landfill. Household hazardous waste and other infectious or toxic materials must be handled in a separate, more stringent way. But over the years, the management of solid waste has evolved into a highly engineered, highly organized way of managing the enormous amount of trash we all produce.
