Dispersion of odour: A case study with a municipal solid waste landfill site in North London, United Kingdom

Abstract

Municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills are a potential source of offensive odours that can create annoyance within communities. Dispersion modelling was used to quantify the potential odour strength causing an impact on the community around a particular MSW landfill site north of the London area in the United Kingdom. The case studies were completed with the short-term mode of COMPLEX-I, software developed by the US-EPA. The year 1998 was chosen as a source of baseline data. It was observed that by 2004, when the landfill will progress towards the west and a big band of the area towards the north would be partly/fully restored, the maximum contribution of the new sources giving higher odour concentrations would be in the southwesterly regions away from the landfill. Concentrations as high as 25.0 ouE/m3 were observed with 3 min averaging time in the southwesterly areas as compared to concentrations of 20.0 ouE/m3 at 10 min averaging times. However, the percentage frequency of such critical events occurring would be low. All other surrounding farms and small villages would be exposed to the concentration of 3.0 ouE/m3 on certain occasions. In the year 2008, the majority of the filling fronts would be filled with wastes with no contributions from the active and operational cells. The maximum odour concentration around the landfill site for 1 h averaging time would be approximately 3 ouE/m3 about 1.0 km north and 500 m west of the landfill site. For 3 min averaging time, the stretch of 5 ouE/m3 band would be up to 2.5 km towards the north of the landfill site. It is argued that further analysis of the model calculations considering effects of wind direction, frequency of wind direction, stability of the atmosphere, selected odour threshold, integration time of the model, etc. would form a basis for calculating the separation distances of the landfill site from the surrounding community. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.