Good landfill practice

Good landfill practice normally requires that Lo is negative or zero and therefore that no excess leachate is produced... 

The design of a landfill site is only one part of the process of ensuring that landfills do not impact adversely on the environment. The second important part of good landfill practice is the operational management of the landfill to ensure that the waste stream is controlled, that recycling of key natural resources is optimised and that the final residue deposited on the landfill site is at the optimum conditions for rapid biodegradation to a final stage quality which is environmentally compatible. 

Other important soil properties of the ET landfill cover may be controlled by adequate design and good construction practices. The properties that govern root and plant growth and are important to design of ET landfill covers include soil density, aeration, pH, and nutrients. For a complete list of soil properties refer to Table 25.2. 

After landfill cover completion, the plant cover may be changed but soil modification may be impractical. Therefore, good soil design and correct construction practices are of utmost importance to the success of the ET cover. 

It is suggested that waste minimization, spill prevention, leakage prevention, volume reduction, waste recycle, energy conversion, and conservation be practiced by the industry as well as the community. Innovative technology must be developed, and good managerial methods must be established for this practice. With all these improvements, modern incinerators and landfill facilities may still be needed, but their numbers and sizes will be significantly reduced. 

Ways, other than legislative means, in which control can be exerted are also shown in Figure 9.2. These include codes of good practice and campaigns, fiscal measures such as the landfill tax and the proposed pesticide tax, and the publication of information. The Environment Agency s Pollution Inventory, launched in 1999, provides environmental information to a large audience, particularly the general public. The inventory is a database of emissions of pollutants to the environment from particular industries in the UK. 

Wastes The disposal of hazardous organic wastes in landfills, though widely practiced, is not a good idea. With sufficient energy, such wastes can be converted to forms that cannot do harm. 

By sensible definition any by-product of a chemical operation for which there is no profitable use is a waste. The most convenient, least expensive way of disposing of said waste—up the chimney or down the river— is the best" (Ha)mes, 1954). This quote describes once-common industrial waste disposal practices, which were based partly on the perception that dispersal of industrial chemical waste into air or water meant that the waste was gone for good. For much of the twentieth century, many industries freely broad-casf chemical waste into the environment as a means of disposal. Other human activities, including use of agricultural pesticides, disposal of household waste in landfills, and widespread use of motor vehicles, also contributed enormous loads of anthropogenic chemicals to the environment. 

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