Sustainable Practices for Landfill Design and Operation

Solid waste management is a global concern, and landfilling remains the predominant management method in most areas of the world.  This book provides a comprehensive view of state-of-the-art methods to manage landfills more sustainably, drawing upon more than two decades of research, design, and operational experiences at operating sites across the world.  Sustainable landfills implement one or multiple technologies to control and enhance the degradation of waste materials to realize a multitude of potential benefits during or shortly after the landfill’s operating phase.  This book presents detailed approaches in the development, design, operation, and monitoring of sustainable landfills.  Case studies showcasing the benefits and challenges of sustainable landfill technologies are also provided to give the reader additional context.  The intent of the book is to serve as a reference guide for regulatory personnel, a practical tool for designers and engineers to build on for site-specific applications of sustainable landfill technologies, and a comprehensive resource for researchers who are continuing to explore new and better ways to more sustainably manage waste materials.

The management of municipal solid waste in many countries throughout the world has changed significantly over the past fifty years, with a shift from uncontrolled dumping or burning to complex systems that integrate multiple processes to recover materials or energy and provide containment to reduce environmental impacts. This volume, the first in the series Waste Management Principles, gives readers a comprehensive overview of advances in sustainable landfill design and operation.

The authors developed this volume to serve as a tool for designers, regulators, and other parties interested in sustainable landfill practices and to be used in conjunction with fundamental design methodologies, location-specific regulations, new and emerging research results, and good engineering judgment. Dozens of graphs, figures, and tables provided throughout the text provide the designer with an excellent foundation to begin their analysis and apply the principles from this book to their site or facility. In like fashion, operational experiences are provided throughout, tying in the important underlying fundamental concepts (e.g., accelerated gas production after liquids addition) to critical operational considerations (e.g., how to effectively collect the additional gas that is produced).

The body of work presented here results from the development of bioreactor landfill design guidelines for the US Environmental Protection Agency’s National Risk Manageme

nt Laboratory, along with the combined knowledge and experience of the authors pertaining to sustainable practices for design and operation of sanitary landfills.