Pollution Incident Again Highlights High Level of Landfill Site Management Needed to Avoid Leachate Pollution

That leachate management requires the constant vigilance of landfill site staff so that breaches don't occur is no doubt exemplified by the following:-

From ENDS June we hear that Glasgow City Council was fined £2000 at Glasgow Sherriff Court on 5 June after contaminated liquid leaked from their Summerston landfill site in the north of Glasgow and entered the River Kelvin.

The local press reported that the liquid was the by-product of decomposing waste buried in the landfill", (ie leachate!).

This liquid is supposed to be collected, contained and treated on site, so that there is no damage to the environment," SEPA said.

The River Kelvin is a high enough quality river these days to be a well known fishing river.

The Leachate Web Site

Leachate Treatment Consultants Awarded CIWM Medal

We could not resist this one! Please excuse the blatant self publicity, and the fact that it has taken over a month to get hold of the picture file - which makes this rather old News...

During the CIWM Dinner in June, Steve Last, Howard Robinson, and Jonty Olufsen were awarded the James Jackson Medal for 2005.

Left to right: Steve Last, Howard Robinson, CIWM President Keith Simmonite, and Jonty Olufsen.

The James Jackson Medal for 2005 was awarded to the best paper presented to a meeting of the Institution, for our combined paper, Design and Operation of Cost Effective Leachate Treatment Systems at UK Landfills: Recent Case Studies, as included in CIWM's Scientific and Technical Review.

If anyone wants a copy of the paper emailed to them email us at info@landfill-site.com . Also visit our leachate web site http://www.leachate.co.uk/ .

Leachate Basics: What is it?

Let us start with a definition:-

leach'ate (noun) a liquid that has percolated through or out of some substance; a liquid that has been polluted or made toxic by percolating through rubbish; a solution obtained by leaching.

The United States EPA provides a more specific definition:

"Leachate is any liquid including any suspended components in the liquid, that has percolated through or drained from hazardous waste."

In this blog we will concentrate on leachate derived from rubbish, and in general from municipal (domestic and commercial) solid wastes (also often called sanitary wastes).

Back from the Ashes!

Here it is the Leachate Blog, originally created by Steve last for the Leachate Team of Enviros Consulting back in 2003, but since forgotten!

Well, it is now resurrected, and this time blogging has come of age, and this partiicular blog is unlikely to be forgotten again.

Until the next Blog, and if you have not seen it before, go take a look at our leachate web sites:

http://www.leachate.co.uk - The original leachate web site constantly enlarged and updated since circa 1997.

http://www.leachate-treatment.com - A promotional only web site for new clients.

www.leachate-irrigation.com - A collaborative web site for leachate irrigation research etc.

More posts soon!