landfill statistics

[guineapig 1]

I have been using all sorts of ways to get rid of garbage in my region including the PEG garbage docks (which I love by the way) but it does sort of feel like cheating at times.

I want to be able to use real landfills early on in the life of a new city and eventually as the city becomes wealthy, send the garbage elsewhere.  I actually tried this in one city and when the time came to clean up my metropolis I added every means I could think of to get rid of garbage and my lanfills did indeed empty to a certain point....  Then it just seems to stop.  I have about 2 dozen little squares of lanfill that I just can't seem to get rid of even though 100% of my garbage is now being either exported or sent into the void and I have a bunch of recycling plants as well (just in case).

I was able to rezone the newly emptied landfill lots but of course there is no way to get rid of filled ones.  So I was wondering what the formula is  for emptying out a landfill zone?  Has anyone run tests on this?

[regionlong 3]

I am not quite sure about this... but I think around 50 - 100 years?? It depends on how much garbage your landfill has....

One of my old cities (which does not exist anymore due to computer crash)... I tried to re-develop the landfill area into a residential area. So first I sent all my garbage to the nearby city, and then I wait the landfill blocks to empty, and I think it took around 70 years for me... (without any ordinance or garbage input)...

[jmusacha 2]

When you are interested in tracking the garbage decay in a landfill, click on the "garbage" graph in the graphs menu.  That will show the actual tonnage of garbage currently in the landfill at the given moment.  Play the city and track the graph to see the rate of depletion. 

[Spinmaster 75]

Two things complicate landfill decay.

1) the rate of decay depends on how much actual garbage there is - i.e. when the landfill is down to that last little bit, it takes a LONG time for that last little bit to decay. Note that other disposal methods do not actually "take" garbage from the landfill - they simply result in no more garbage being added to the landfill, allowing it to decay at full-speed. But even at full-speed, once it's down to that last little bit... best advice here is to literally try to forget about it for a while - the ol' "a watched pot never boils" thing applies here.

2) take care not to dezone the landfill irregularly - there is a known bug whereby the garbage will NEVER decay if it's on a 1 x m landfill. Be sure to keep at least a 2x2 landfill zone until it's all gone, even if you "see" one of those four tiles empty, and you won't have to worry about this.

If you get angry enough at it, some have suggested dropping meteors works. Actually, I think it does, but then of course you'll have to deal with the crater - assuming the meteor lands exactly where you want it to. Good luck with that. Plus if "it feels like cheating" is a concern, well the mayor somehow magically pulling meteors out of the sky qualifes, methinks. Personally, I would agree that PEG's chute is "cheating" with the garbage (though even that's only because "our" world isn't really flat... the sims' is, so is it really cheating?), but the docks are certainly not cheating. Lots of cities around the world have to ship their garbage out, it's simply cheaper in some cases to ship it away...

... even though sometimes... it comes back.

[guineapig 1]

Thanks fot the tips all.

I actually tried meteors along with all the other disasters. It doesn't work at getting rid of the landfill but it produces some interesting results none the less. =)

[Loney 22]

If you want the landfill to decay faster, try installing this landfill mod: https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?p=results

[guineapig 1]

Originally posted by: Loney

If you want the landfill to decay faster, try installing this landfill mod: https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?p=results

quote>

You mean this one?

https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=20802

Thanks for the tip, I will definitely try it out tonight!