In developing countries, the affordability of environmental control measures for sanitary landfilling is a key issue. Ideally, objectives for landfilling in developing countries should match corresponding objectives in developed countries. Also, objectives for landfills serving large towns and cities should be the same as those for landfills serving small villages. However, the communities of small towns and villages in developing countries usually cannot afford to apply standards equal to those applied in large cities. This report explores three factors that can be used to classify landfills, in order to allow affordable graded standards for landfilling to be applied in a rational way. The three factors are:

(1) The type of waste;

(2) The size of landfill; and

(3) The climatic conditions at the site. There are, in addition, several other factors and conditions that need to be considered, e.g. the geological and geohydrological conditions at each specific site. The classification is suitable for use in a developing country, but could be used equally well in a developed country, particularly one in which conditions vary considerably from one region to another.