Landfill concept

Christensen TH, Scharff H, Hjelmar O. Landfilling — concepts and challenges. In Christensen TH, editor. Solid waste management, vol. 2. Chichester. UK Wiley 2011, ISBN 978 1405175173. p. 685—94. 

Environment Sensors monitoring air and water quality will be able to provide early warning of pollution events arising at industrial plants, landfill sites, reservoirs, and water distribution systems at remote locations. The environmental nervous system concept likens the rapid access and response capabilities of widely distributed sensor networks to the human nervous system that is, it is able to detect and categorize events as they happen, and organize an appropriate response. 

The concept of containment as a method for dealing with contaminated ground is based on the use of low-permeability barriers to isolate the contaminated material, or any associated leachate or gaseous products, from the environment. The barriers can be constructed from natural or synthetic materials, or a combination of both, and can be placed over, under or around a contaminated area or pollution source. The technique can be used to isolate existing hazards such as a contamination source, to prevent the spread of contaminants from a disposal site such as landfill, or to isolate specially designed mono-disposal sites for contaminated soil. 

Prom an engineering viewpoint, the most direct way to estimate pollution emissions from an industrial plant is by mass balance. The concept is mass in = mass out —that is, everything the purchasing department buys and is delivered to the plant must somehow leave the plant, whether within the manufactured product as solid waste to a landfill as air emissions either through a stack or vent or as liquid waste either to an on-site treatment plant or to the sewer and the municipal wastewater treatment plant. 

The impact of waste on the environment is not negligible, but it does not, by a long way, hold the first place. The share of plastics in waste is about 11%. The part of plastics in oil consumption is 4%. Waste treatments are not the same from a thermodynamic point of view. Waste prevention is a satisfactory concept but has limited application. Plastics are especially landfilled in mixture with other garbage or incinerated. They are not well recycled (7%) despite a rapid and positive evolution in the rate of recycling in the years 1997-2007. Recycling therefore remains an important activity to provide in the coming years. 

The concept of biodegradable synthetic polymers was first proposed in the 1960s as a potential solution to the problem of plastics litter. This was initially welcomed by environmentally aware public, particularly in the USA, since it was perceived to be a possible solution to the landfill problem. Packaging producers in collaboration with corn growers were quick to respond to the public mood by adding corn starch to polyethylene. Carrier bags made from this material were claimed, without experimental evidence, to be biodegradable but the... 

Before 90 days is up hazardous waste is picked up for disposal. This will require a manifest. A manifest is the tracking document behind the entire RCRA cradle-to-grave concept. It is the official DOT shipping document that tracks a waste shipment from the time it is loaded on the transporter s vehicle until it is disposed (incinerated, fuel blended, landfilled, recycled, etc.). The manifest carries with it legal liability for the person who signs the document from the generating facility. 

Thus for waste management, and landfill disposal, the objectives are clear and apparently achievable, and in this way. Agenda 21 represents a step towards the attainment of common standards across the world, (in those aspects of landfill management that are specifically referred to), and which helps to ensure progress towards sustainable waste management. Whether or not landfill is truly sustainable is a moot point, and one which will be considered throughout this book. The concept of acceptable risk and the "nature and assimilative ctqracity of the receiving environment" are important factors in this discussion and are considered later. 

The converse argument to the "dry-tomb" approach is that waste treatment, not storage, is the only safe way forward for landfill practice. This view accepts that containment in perpetuity is not possible and that conditions for waste degradation within the landfill should be optimised in order to encourage attenuation processes, i.e. contain and attenuate landfill and not just simple "containment" represents the safest option for the disposal of waste to land. This concept is explored further in Chapter 7. 

With the concept of acceptable and managed risk in mind, the concept of the sustainable landfill (Harris et al, 1993) and fail-safe landfill (Loxham, 1993) have been proposed. 

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