What Does A North Carolina Landfill Look Like? Modern landfills are well-designed and well-run places to get rid of trash. To make sure they follow federal rules, landfills are put in place, designed, managed, and watched. They are also meant to keep pollution from getting into the environment through waste streams. Landfills are not allowed in places that are bad for the environment, and they must be placed with the help of equipment that can monitor the environment on-site. These monitoring devices protect you even more by finding contamination in groundwater and landfill gas. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act...