Durability of two bituminous geomembranes (BGMs) with different thicknesses in MSW synthetic leachate.

The effect of thickness (4.8 and 4.1 mm) on the degradation of two bituminous geomembranes (BGMs), when immersed in a synthetic leachate is investigated over a period of 33 months. Based on the data collected at four different temperatures (20, 40, 55, 70 °C), it is shown that the 4.1 mm has slightly faster degradation than the 4.8 mm thick BGM. Due to the reduced conditions of the examined leachate, the degradation in the chemical and rheological properties of the bitumen coat was relatively lower than in air and water immersion. However, the presence of a surfactant in the leachate increased the degradation of the polymeric back film and the reinforcement layer responsible for the mechanical properties of the BGM. The time to nominal failure of the two BGMs is predicted at a typical range of landfill liner temperatures using Arrhenius modelling. The predictions at temperatures >20 °C suggest that the examined BGMs may not be suitable for the containment of solid wastes containing surfactants due to the fast degradation in their mechanical properties.

A long-term comparative assessment of human health risk to leachate-contaminated groundwater from heavy metal with different liner systems.

The handling and management of municipal solid waste (MSW) are major challenges for solid waste management in developing countries. Open dumping is still the most common waste disposal method in India. However, landfilling also causes various environmental, social, and human health impacts. The generation of heavily polluted leachate is a major concern to public health. Engineered barrier systems (EBSs) are commonly used to restrict potentially harmful wastes by preventing the leachate percolation to groundwater and overflow to surface water bodies. The EBSs are made of natural (e.g., soil, clay) and/or synthetic materials such as polymeric materials (e.g., geomembranes, geosynthetic clay liners) by arranging them in layers. Various studies have estimated the human health risk from leachate-contaminated groundwater. However, no studies have been reported to compare the human health risks, particularly due to the leachate contamination with different liner systems. The present study endeavors to quantify the human health risk to contamination from MSW landfill leachate using multiple simulations for various EBSs. To quantify the variation in health risks to groundwater consumption to the child and adult populations, the Turbhe landfill of Navi Mumbai in India has been selected. The leachate and groundwater samples were collected continuously throughout January-September in 2015 from the landfill site, and heavy metal concentrations were analyzed using an inductively coupled plasma system. The LandSim 2.5 Model, a landfill simulator, was used to simulate the landfill activities for various time slices, and non-carcinogenic human health risk was determined for selected heavy metals. Further, the uncertainties associated with multiple input parameters in the health risk model were quantified under a Monte Carlo simulation framework.

On the current state of the Hydrologic Evaluation of Landfill Performance (HELP) model.

The Hydrologic Evaluation of Landfill Performance (HELP) model is the most widely applied model to calculate the water balance of cover and bottom liner systems for landfills. The paper summarizes the 30 year history of the model from HELP version 1 to HELP 3.95 D and includes references to the three current and simultaneously available versions (HELP 3.07, Visual HELP 2.2, and HELP 3.95 D). A sufficient validation is an essential precondition for the use of any model in planning. The paper summarizes validation approaches for HELP 3 focused on cover systems in the literature. Furthermore, measurement results are compared to simulation results of HELP 3.95 D for (1) a test field with a compacted clay liner in the final cover of the landfill Hamburg-Georgswerder from 1988 to 1995 and (2) a test field with a 2.3m thick so-called water balance layer on the landfill Deetz near Berlin from 2004 to 2011. On the Georgswerder site actual evapotranspiration was well reproduced by HELP on the yearly average as well as in the seasonal course if precipitation data with 10% systematic measurement errors were used. However, the increase of liner leakage due to the deterioration of the clayey soil liner was not considered by the model. On the landfill Deetz HELP overestimated largely the percolation through the water balance layer resulting from an extremely wet summer due to an underestimation of the water storage in the layer and presumably also due to an underestimation of the actual evapotranspiration. Finally based on validation results and requests from the practice, plans for improving the model to a future version HELP 4 D are described.