A landfill is an in-ground facility designed and engineered to safely and securely hold society’s waste. It has the potential to process a variety of pollution streams, such as stormwater runoff, leachate, and landfill gas, aside from the usual issues associated with garbage, such as dust, offensive odour, litter, and noise. Needless to say, these pollutants can contaminate nearby bodies of water, groundwater, soil, and air. For this reason, there are guidelines that have to be followed for the environmental management of a landfill.
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Generally, these landfills are sited, planned, built, and run to cause the most minimal impact on the environment and human health. Waste brought to them are stabilised so that the site may be progressively rehabilitated for return to productive use in the future. Recycling is also promoted so that resources found in the waste could be reused beneficially.
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Landfills are typically designed to hold a specific class of waste. In Australia, the waste classes are normally sorted into the following: general solid waste (with two subcategories of “putrescible” and “non-putrescible”), restricted solid waste, special waste, like asbestos, hazardous waste, and liquid waste. Understandably, the guidelines indicate different standards of waste management for the different waste classifications.
The minimum standards in these guidelines refer to best practice measures involving the design and construction of the landfill, its operation, the monitoring and reporting protocols for it, and even its management after closure. These minimum standards are applicable when dealing with landfills for general solid waste and restricted solid waste, although there are some additional stricter standards for restricted solid waste landfills, due to its greater level of contamination.
Restricted solid waste landfills should certainly be managed with tighter environmental controls than those that take in general solid waste. For instance, leachate is addressed with the design of a dual barrier system, with a secondary barrier installed below or outside the primary barrier to deal with leakage that was able to manage its way past the first barrier. The material used for these barriers should be robust enough not to be compromised by chemicals present in the leachate. As for the restricted solid waste cells, they should be entirely above the highest recorded groundwater table at all times and may be located wholly or partly above ground. They should also boast a leachate and level-control system that is automated and telemetered, activates an alarm when leachate rises to a risky level, has interlocks or sensors, etc.
Great effort goes into the management of the society’s waste. It’s important to know the effort that goes into it so that people would be more mindful about minimising the amount of waste they create.
We love hearing from people about their industrial and commercial environmental remediation projects: Talk to AES about your project.
