Materials Management fact sheet, in 2015 the total amount of municipal waste in the United States amounted to 262.4 million tons. Based on per capita population, 4.48 pounds of waste per person per day was produced in 2018. That waste consisted of paper, glass, rubber, plastic, metals, food and textiles, among other things.
Just over half of that waste ended up in landfills. Of the municipal waste dumped in landfills, the majority consisted of food, plastic, paper, rubber, leather and textiles. The leachate of the landfill is created as a result of water flowing through this decomposing municipal waste.
Landfills are locations in large open areas where waste is dumped and buried. The waste is usually stacked in layers and then compacted before a layer of soil or wood chips is added to the top. Before waste is deposited in a landfill, most landfills must have a liner at the bottom. In the US, this requirement is “a flexible membrane (geo membrane) that covers two feet of compacted clay soil that covers the bottom and sides of the landfill”. These liners are intended to protect the soil and groundwater against leach ate contamination.
What is landfill leach ate?
Leach ate is generally the product of a liquid that dissolves or traps solids and other components after it has passed through something. That something can be any number of things in a landfill. That is why the leach ate from the landfill is the result of water, either through rinsing or precipitation, which seeps into the landfill due to the decomposing waste.
The physical appearance of the leach ate of landfills is that of a turbid black, yellow and orange liquid. This liquid smells strongly, possibly as a result of hydrogen, nitrogen and sulfur-containing compounds in municipal waste.
On a small scale, it would be what happens if you throw a cup of water in a full garbage can and leave it for a few days. The liquid would travel through the waste before it finally settled in a smelly brown puddle on the bottom of the can.
Contaminants:
Percolate contaminants can be anything from: dissolved organic substances such as alcohols, acids, aldehydes and short-chain sugars, inorganic macro-components such as sulfate, chloride, iron, aluminum, zinc and ammonia, heavy metals such as lead, nickel, copper and mercury , and xenobiotic organic compounds such as halogenated organic substances, PCBs and dioxins.
Issues of Leach ate:
Pollution of groundwater is the biggest concern with the leach ate of landfills. If a landfill does not have a liner or a cracked liner, the liquid leach ate can seep through the soil beneath the waste site and then into the groundwater supply. To prevent this contamination, collection and treatment solutions must be used to reduce leach ate levels in landfills.
How can electro coagulation treat the leach ate of landfills?
Electro coagulation (EC) is by no means a new idea in waste water treatment .This technology is now also used in advance water filters for home . However, in the last ten years it has received considerable recognition as an effective and inexpensive treatment method for a variety of industries and municipal applications.
Percolate treatment at landfills is one of those applications where this electrochemical technology has been used as part of an integrated treatment solution. With its reactions that cause both sedimentation and flocculation, it can remove or reduce multiple contaminants in a single process. It can precipitate even smaller particles that chemical treatment methods may miss.
Unlike conventional chemical coagulation, it is not as sensitive to changes in the composition of the effluent and is capable of treating a number of contaminants as mentioned above. As seen in the photo of the results of this study , EC is very effective in removing color, although in many cases it can also remove odor.
Although further steps would be needed to treat the leach ate from the landfill so that the resulting water would be clean enough to discharge or reuse. This specialized EC process can be an effective process in an integrated process system to treat the leach ate. The lower life cycle costs of this electrochemical process, the performance and the relatively simple operation make the EC process as a primary candidate for percolation water.
These are reasons why Genesis Water Technologies, Inc. is a world leader in the integration of specialized electrochemical technology and favors its use for both municipal and industrial treatment applications. The use of a GWT-specialized electrocoagulation system solution within an integrated leachate treatment system can enable optimized treatment performance with the possibility of reusing leachate waste water or discharging it sustainably with relatively low life cycle costs.
This also makes the minimization of any environmental effects possible, as well as this waste water source.
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