Abstract
In 1983, the mercury contained in used batteries raised fears of environmental pollution, and it was becoming a serious concern in Japan. The behavior and characteristics of mercury from used batteries in landfill sites was still unknown.
In 1985, the authors began focusing on mercury discharge into leachate and atmospheric dispersion via vaporization with mixtures of batteries and other wastes using large lysimeters. The lysimeters were taken down after 10 years for the anaerobic landfill group and after 20 years for the semi-aerobic landfill group in order to conduct detailed analysis.
Over the 20 years period, the outflow of mercury from the lysimeter was only 2% or less, and the major part was atmospheric dispersion via vaporization. The mercury in the leachate was less than 0.2%. Sampled batteries after 10 and 20 years suffered surface corrosion and about 6% of the mercury from the batteries had migrated to the waste layer. Furthermore, this showed that the migration of mercury was less under anaerobic conditions than semi-aerobic conditions.
This experiment proved that over 20 years more than 90% of the mercury did not leak out, and it was confirmed that the majority of the mercury remained in the landfill.
