LANDFILLS Get the right site In the past, little regard was given to where landfills were located and how they were operated. Today’s modern landfills are built in locations that protect human health and the environment, as well as the structural integrity of the landfill. The greatest potential to safeguard the local environment from adverse impacts from a new landfill, without incurring the excessive cost of protective measures, is in selecting an appropriate location. Locating a landfill in the right hydrogeological setting can often avoid the significant expense of impor ting materials to create a basal barrier system to protect groundwater. Many other site selection criteria also have a bearing on the cost of site development and operation, and on the cost to the waste management system as a whole, including:
• distance from areas of waste generation • access from good public roads • likelihood of local (e.g. on-site) availability of cover material • proximity to municipal sewage treatment works (if leachate is to be collected). In the search for a new landfill site, the conversion of the existing dumpsite may also be considered. In an ideal world, a number of potential sites should be identified, and a systematic process of selection/rejection applied to yield one, two or possibly three preferred sites, on which full technical, financial and environmental assessments are then carried out. Unfor tunately, in the real world, more than one potential site may be difficult to find, formal assessments are seldom under taken, and the replacement site may be chosen on the basis of availability alone.
(Courtesy of the Wizard of Id) Figure 1 (Credit: National Solid Wastes Management Association)
FEBRUARY 2021
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