Explore Waste Sites in Canada, the United States, and Mexico
This interactive map plots more than 8,400 landfills and waste dumps across North America, drawing on governmental datasets from Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Each point can be filtered by country and operational status, and clicked to reveal the site name, region, owner or operator, and original data source. Data is sourced from the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) and compiled from national and sub-national government records.
Interactive Landfills Map: Canada, United States, and Mexico
Use the Country and Status filters in the toolbar to narrow the map to specific regions or site types. Clusters expand as you zoom in. Click any marker to view full site details.
How to Use This Map
Getting Started
All landfill locations load automatically when the page opens. Zoom and pan freely across Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Numbered clusters indicate how many sites are grouped in an area and expand as you zoom in.
Filters and Controls
The Country dropdown limits the map to sites in Canada, the United States, or Mexico. The Status dropdown filters by Open, Closed, or Unknown sites. The site count in the toolbar reflects your current selection. Both filters can be combined.
Sharing a View
The page URL updates automatically as you navigate and apply filters. Copy and share the URL at any point to link directly to that specific map view and filter combination.
Landfills in Canada
Canada’s landfill infrastructure is managed by a mix of municipal governments, regional waste authorities, Indigenous settlement councils, and private waste management companies such as Tervita and Waste Connections. Provinces including Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec host the largest concentrations of sites. Many older and rural dumps — particularly in remote northern communities — carry an Unknown status due to limited historical records in the source data.
Landfills in the United States
The United States operates one of the largest municipal solid waste management systems in the world. The map draws on federal and state-level datasets to show the distribution of open and closed landfill sites across all 50 states. Open sites range from large regional sanitary landfills operated by county governments to privately managed facilities serving metropolitan areas.
Landfills in Mexico
Mexico’s landfill data reflects a mix of formal municipal waste facilities and informal or legacy disposal sites. A significant proportion of sites recorded for Mexico carry an Unknown operational status, highlighting the challenges of consistent data collection across the country’s diverse municipal waste management systems.
About the Data
The dataset is maintained by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), a trilateral intergovernmental organization established under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation. The CEC aggregates landfill and waste dump location data from national and sub-national government sources across Canada, the United States, and Mexico. All locations are approximate.
Status categories used in this dataset:
- Open — the site is actively receiving waste
- Closed — the site is no longer accepting waste
- Unknown — operational status could not be confirmed from the source data
The original dataset is available for download from the CEC in formats including CSV, GeoJSON, KML, Shapefile, and GeoPackage.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many landfills are shown on the map?
The map displays over 8,400 landfill and waste dump locations across Canada, the United States, and Mexico, based on the CEC’s 2024 North American Landfills dataset.
Which countries are covered?
The dataset covers all three countries in continental North America: Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Use the Country filter to view sites for a single country.
Is this data current?
The dataset was published by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation in 2024. Individual site operational status may have changed after the source data was compiled.
What does Unknown status mean?
Unknown means the source government records did not confirm whether the site is actively operating or permanently closed. This is particularly common for older and rural sites in all three countries.
How accurate are the site locations?
Locations are approximate and reflect government-reported coordinates. They should not be used for regulatory compliance, site remediation assessments, or precise navigation.
Where can I download the raw data?
The full dataset is available directly from the Commission for Environmental Cooperation in multiple geospatial formats.
