Environmental analysis landfills

Environmental applications of ICP-MS are numerous, and include analysis of water, wastewater, soil, sediment, air particulates, and so on. A typical environmental analysis is to determine the leachable metals from soil or sediment the sohd is not dissolved but leached or extracted to determine labile elements. These labile or leachable elements are the ones that might be mobilized from a landfill into a drinking water supply, for example. Figure 10.39 gives an example of determining leachable metals from an NIST Standard Reference Material (SRM) soil sample by ICP-MS. 

This paper describes a life eyele analysis study eondueted to determine the environmental impaet of meehanieal recycling in comparison to, or in conjunction with, other post-consumer HDPE disposal options - landfill, incineration, and energy reeovery. The results are presented and discussed in full. 

The aim of the Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) is to facilitate the interpretation of the results of the inventory analysis. The result of the inventory analysis is an emission profile for each alternative system. In this study the emission profile is the total of all emissions to air, water and soil from the grave-to-cradle chain for the use of cushion vinyl floor covering, including the up chain processes, like electricity production and the down chain processes, like the incineration and landfill of the waste. Such an emission profile may consist of hundreds of emissions and extractions. In LCA impact assessment the total of interventions (emissions, extractions) of a process chain is evaluated in terms of environmental problems (impact categories). 

FAST NEUTRON ACTIVATION ANALYSIS—John W. McKIveen SOLAR HEATING AND COOLING OF BUILDINGS—Richard S. Greeley ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH CHEMISTRY—James D. McKinney ASBESTOS PARTICLE ATLAS—Walter C. McCrone CONTAMINANTS AND SEDIMENTS—Vol. 1 2—Robert A. Baker METHANE GENERATION RECOVERY FROM LANDFILLS—EMCON Associates... 

If the combined cost of sampling and analysis is relatively low compared with the cost of treatment, then more intensive sampling would save on treatment costs, because less of the landfill area would be treated unnecessarily. Of course the converse applies too - if the cost of treatment is very low compared with the cost of analysis, then intensive sampling might not be cost effective. However, there might be other reasons for wishing to reduce the treatment as much as possible. For example, there may be some environmental impact associated with the treatment itself. 

Reinhar D.R., Grosh C. J. Analysis of Florida MSW Landfill Leachate Quality University of Central Florida Civil and Environmental Engineering Department March 31 1997 Report 97-3. 

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