Groundwater Pollution and Its Countermeasures Associated with Solid Waste Landfill

Abstract

Considering a limitation of available land for waste landfilling, the amount of waste directed to landfill sites should be minimized by reduction, reuse and recycling. Besides a constraint of waste volume, characteristics of waste filled has been changed recently in the manner that pollutants including hazardous substances are concentrated in waste as regulation of water and air emission is strengthened. Thus the landfill site has an important role as a final barrier to control a flow of hazardous substances in the environment. Above all a lining system is required to prevent groundwater pollution by leachate released from waste body in conjunction with a front check system of incoming waste, groundwater monitoring, and leachate treatment. A new design criteria or philosophy of waste landfills should be developed to prevent groundwater pollution since those technologies currently available are rather new and thus less promising with a lot of uncertainty.