Pretreated municipal solid waste behaviour in laboratory scale landfill

Abstract

Mechanical biological pretreatment processes are increasingly being employed as a means of diverting biodegradable municipal waste from landfi ll to comply with the EU Landfi ll Directive. This will have major implications for the nature of the waste that is disposed of to landfi lls and hence for the way in which the landfi lls should be managed. The long-term behaviour of mechanically biologically treated (MBT) waste will be different from that of unprocessed municipal solid waste since the pretreatment process may change its physical, chemical and biological properties. To investigate the impact of the level of pretreatment, large-scale laboratory experiments were carried out on MBT wastes treated to typical UK and German standards. Gas generating potential, leachate quality, settlement characteristics and hydraulic properties of MBT wastes were determined and compared. The research has demonstrated the benefi ts of pretreatment in substantially reducing the gas generating potential, releasing low levels of total organic carbon and ammoniacal nitrogen and, reducing the long-term settlements due to creep and biodegradation. Data from both MBT wastes followed the same general trend of decreasing hydraulic conductivity and drainable porosity with increasing stress and waste density. © 2014 WIT Press.