# Why are conventional landfills a problem? Conventional landfills are not sustainable: the land on which many landfills sit is at a premium, landfills are not reusable for roughly 30 years or more, and they emit tons of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere every day. Landfills are designed to hide our garbage from public view, which unintentionally supports a lack of awareness and concern for the environmental damage wrought by these landfills. On average, Americans produce 1,609 lbs. of garbage per year per person, of which about half go to landfills. \[4] As these disposal sites inevitably approach fill limits, they demand increased attention, funding, and more land to build new landfills. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://wp.newgreendealcorp.com/problem-statement/why-are-conventional-landfills-a-problem.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.