Landfills have been a major part of waste management for decades. In most cases, their purpose is to hold a wide variety of disposed waste like solid materials, hazardous materials, electronic devices, and many more. While all these materials don’t come from the commercial roofing industry, there are millions of tons that do come from traditional tear-offs. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) roofing waste accounts for about 6.5 million tons of waste in landfills each year. These millions of tons then often take decades to break down—if they ever do—and can release harmful chemicals during that process.

In this blog, we’ll discuss the environmental impacts of landfill waste and explore how commercial roofing materials can play a role in these impacts.

Landfill Waste and It’s Impacts

Landfills are one of the primary concerns when it comes to waste management because their accumulation of waste can have severe ecological, social, and economic impacts. Two of these include:

Release of Air Pollutants

When waste is dumped in a landfill, it’s placed there to break down and decompose. However, during this process, these materials can release harmful gases such as methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. The exposure of these into the atmosphere can then influence local air quality, climate change, and lead to an increased chance of respiratory issues for individuals who are nearby.

Soil Contamination

The accumulation of waste in landfills can contaminate the soil and groundwater, just like they do with the air. As waste decomposes in landfills, it also produces a liquid, which can contain things like harmful chemicals, bacteria, and pathogens. Overtime these contaminants can begin to seep into the soil and groundwater and pollute the surrounding area’s water sources.

Commercial Roofing and Reducing Landfill Waste

Commercial roofing may not contribute all landfill materials, but it does contribute a significant amount of waste. When roofing materials meet the end of their lifespan, traditional methods are to tear them off, dispose of them, put new materials on, and then repeat the cycle in the future. But what if there was a better way to maintain your roof? An alternative that allowed you to reduce your businesses waste and contribute significantly less to landfills overtime.

Well, that’s exactly what commercial roof restoration does. Commercial roof restoration takes an existing roof’s surface and brings it back to top performance without the need for tear-off or replacement. This automatically eliminates the need to dispose of thousands of tons of roofing material into landfills—plus you’re saving more money by not paying for that costly disposal.

The fluid-applied materials that commercial roof restoration uses are designed to renewable, so you don’t need to replace your roof in the future. Instead, you can simply renew it again with a new fluid-applied layer. So, not only does restoration eliminate the need for waste disposal initially, but also in the future.

Interested in exploring how roof restoration can help you reduce your waste output?

If you’re interested in exploring how roof restoration can help you reduce your waste output, our team at White Hat Industrial is happy to help. We’ve aligned with major organizations nationwide to help them achieve their goals and are the go-to specialist for commercial roof restoration.

Simply call us at 937.909.9030 or contact us via email. You can also follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook to learn more about us and the work we do.