Landfill Life Calculator

Capacity Used (%) is simply Capacity Used to Date divided by Total Permitted Capacity -- a snapshot of how much of the permitted airspace has already been consumed, independent of how quickly waste is currently arriving. Daily Waste Intake instead drives how fast the REMAINING capacity gets used up going forward, which is what Estimated Years Remaining measures.

A higher Compaction Ratio packs more tons of waste into the same cubic yard of airspace, so it directly reduces the daily airspace consumed per ton of intake -- moving from a 2.5:1 to a 4:1 compaction ratio can meaningfully extend Estimated Years Remaining without changing how much waste is actually being received.

Because Annual Intake Growth compounds -- if intake grows 2% per year, year 10's intake is meaningfully higher than year 1's -- a simple remaining-capacity-divided-by- current-annual-volume calculation would overstate years remaining for a growing landfill, so the calculator instead adds up compounding annual volumes year by year until the Remaining Capacity is exhausted.

Landfills must periodically cover waste with soil or an alternative material for odor, vector, and erosion control, and that cover material itself consumes permitted airspace -- this calculator estimates cover soil at a fixed 17% of waste volume and subtracts an equivalent share of Remaining Capacity when computing Effective Years, so the effective life is somewhat shorter than the simple waste-only estimate.

It doesn't account for changes in waste composition over time (which affects both compaction potential and gas generation), permit modifications that could expand or restrict capacity, seasonal or economic swings in intake volume, or geotechnical and environmental engineering limits -- like slope stability, leachate management capacity, or groundwater protection requirements -- that can restrict how much of the nominal permitted capacity is actually usable in practice.