landfill

landfill — noun

1. a place where garbage and other waste is buried under the ground, or the activit

1.nounB1
Definition

a place where garbage and other waste is buried under the ground, or the activity of dealing with waste in this way

Example

The city's main landfill is now almost full after twenty years of use.

countable: a landfill as a physical site

Marta takes her old furniture to the recycling centre instead of sending it to landfill.

uncountable: to landfill as a method

Common collocations
  • landfill site
  • landfill gas
  • landfill waste
  • send something to landfill
  • go to landfill
Synonyms
  • dump

    less formal, less regulated; a landfill is a specific type of engineered waste site

  • waste disposal site

    more formal, broader meaning covering any waste treatment location

  • rubbish tip

    British informal, similar in meaning to 'dump'

Antonyms

Usage Note

The uncountable form (without 'a' or 's') refers to the method or process; the countable form ('a landfill' / 'landfills') refers to the physical site.

Common Mistakes

We need to reduce landfill.' (vague)
We need to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill.
When using landfill as an uncountable noun for the method of disposal, you must state what is being reduced.

Word family

  • landfilling
    nounC1

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

Landfill, dump, waste disposal site, and rubbish tip all refer to places where waste is taken. Landfill describes a managed, engineered disposal site where waste is covered daily with soil to control smell and pests. Dump is an older, less controlled term — people use it for any place where trash is piled, often illegally. Waste disposal site is a formal, neutral term used in official documents and business contexts. Rubbish tip is British informal, similar in meaning to 'dump'. For example: 'The city's landfill receives 500 tons of waste each day' vs 'Someone left old tyres at an illegal dump behind the factory.'

dump ↗waste disposal siterubbish tip

Common collocations

Nouns

  • landfill site
  • landfill gas
  • landfill operation
  • landfill capacity

Verbs

  • create a landfill
  • close a landfill
  • build a landfill
  • send waste to landfill

Phrases

  • end up in landfill
  • divert waste from landfill

Prepositions

  • at a landfill
  • in a landfill
  • into a landfill

Etymology

English

Landfill is a compound of the English words 'land' and 'fill', literally meaning 'to fill land'. The term was first used in the 1940s as a technical word in waste management and civil engineering.