Since the most massive shut down of sanitary landfill spaces in US history in 1993, there have been very few new landfills created to take on an ever-increasing total volume of waste. Though rates of recycling have gone up considerably since then, the total rate of waste generation has also increased, to make the level of solid waste that arrives at landfills to remain nearly even or slightly higher over that same period.
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.
