Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Building Work Starts on the World's Most Expensive Leachate Treatment Plant

Construction work has begun on the world's most expensive leachate treatment plant which at $27 million will be the most expensive ever built in the world to date. 

A number of plants are estimated to have been built at up to $15 million previously, but this one is significantly the most expensive in terms of the (assumed) capital cost, and it will only pre-treat the leachate which will then be discharged to the public sewer.
There will be an additional charge for that, levied by the Wastewater Treatment Works operator on top of the running costs for the leachate pre-treatment plant - but that cost pales into insignificance when compared with this level of investment.
We have found the following information on the web about the project:
JOHNSTON — The Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation (RIRRC) recently broke ground on a $27 million leachate pre-treatment plant. The new facility, which will be built on RIRRC property, will utilize green principles to create an energy-efficient system capable of properly treating wastewater before it is released into municipal sewer systems.
“This new facility will help to ensure that Resource Recovery is completely compliant with all modern wastewater treatment standards, and will employ approximately 160 Rhode Island workers in the construction sector through early 2015,” said Mike OConnell, RIRRC’s executive director.
It is not clear whether the £27 million quoted includes for operational costs for a period after construction, but at this price the plant must certainly be the most expensive contract ever.
A second US leachate pre-treatment plant which has just commenced construction is also in the news, this time it is located at the Monmouth County Reclamation Center in New Jersey.
The investment must be substantial, and in thic case the contract does include operational of the plant after construction, but no figures have been given in the press releases we have seen.
We include further information on this second leachate pre-treatment plant below:
Applied Water Management (AWM), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Natural Systems Utilities (NSU), has broken ground along with Middlesex Water Company on a new leachate pretreatment facility at the Monmouth County Reclamation Center in Tinton Falls, New Jersey, US.
The companies have partnered to design, construct and operate the facility under an initial 15-year contract with Monmouth County.
Monmouth County Reclamation Center superintendent Richard Throckmorton said that a long-term public-private partnership with the local New Jersey companies enables the county to have in place a system to manage wastewater with long-term reliability and flexibility, designed to accommodate future regulations.
The project includes a new wastewater treatment plant, which employs an advanced membrane bioreactor (MBR), pump station and pipeline that connects to the local sewer utility.
The MBR technology provides a high level of treatment that helps protect the environment by removing over 500,000lbs of nitrogen and over 1,000lbs of heavy metals from the waste stream every year.
NSU-AWM executive vice president Richard Cisterna said that using an advanced MBR reduces the amount of untreated leachate hauled off-site, significantly lowering operating costs and positively impacting the environment.
These two plants, due to the cost involved, must surely raise the profile of leachate treatment in the US, both within the public who will in the end be paying for them, and the water treatment industry which will need to create specialized water treatment process systems for the special nature of leachate, if these plants are to operate reliably and efficiently.

Saturday, November 09, 2013

How Would You Recognize Leachate Pollution If You Saw It?


Some types of leachate are immediately recognizable by their smell, but that isn't always true and others and much harder to distinguish from the low levels of pollution from septic tanks, and the presence of animals living on the land or nearby.

Steve Last, (Principal of IPPTS Associates) has published an article about the 3 most important indicator substances for the diagnosis of the presence of leachate contamination in soil or river/ stream water, which provides a handy guide to the first steps which might help identify a leachate pollution problem when leachate escapes from a landfill.

Don't stop here if you have an interest in this subject, visit the following link to the leachate expert website.

Friday, November 01, 2013

Why a Landfill Leachate Pollution Incident is so Dangerous to River and Stream Life

Leachate water pollution is a really serious problem when it takes place. I picture how major it is when nasty sewerage overflows in a city district. The encounter is not a pleasurable one for us human beings when we could quickly use our feet and move far from the contamination resource, but the plants and fauna that reside in waterways and streams have nowhere to go when pollution escapes into their living space underwater.

(Image: jschoen2000 via Flickr)

Now think about that landfill leachate which is (depending on the landfill it came from) between 10 and 100 times more powerful compared to sewerage, and take into consideration just how harmful that could be to all-natural organisms in our waterways and streamflows.



Throughout a leachate water pollution event the organic contamination in leachate which is represented by the concentration of BOD (Biochemical Oxygen Demand) feeds micro-organisms in the water which take air from the water in order to increase. This means that there is little or no oxygen left for greater organisms such as fish to breath, and the initial result of leachate water air pollution is generally that witnesses observe lifeless fish belly-up on the edge of the stream or drifting in the direction of the flow.

Nevertheless, when this occurs you can wager that a whole host of undetected creatures that would generally support the life of the fish are likewise suffering and dying. The result is that the whole ecological balance of the watercourse is hindered and could take lots of months, or years, to recover to its initial clean and living and population booming normal condition.

However, aside from the effect of minimized oxygen levels which we have explained, leachate includes numerous other contaminants. The hardest to get rid of and most damaging to flows and river it might enter into is ammoniacal-nitrogen. (People have frequently called this ammonia, yet ammonia in water is a mix of liquefied ammonium and gaseous ammonia - so we will certainly call it ammoniacal-nitrogen to make it clear that we called the complete ammonia (gas) and ammonium (dissolved)).

Ammoniacal-nitrogen is typically existing in sewerage at in between 10 mg/l and FIFTY mg/l (10 ppm to 50 ppm), but in a controlled garbage dump leachate from a regular sanitary waste landfill it will certainly be found to be between 500 mg/l and 3,000 mg/l.

Now consider just what level of ammoniacal-nitrogen greater organisms could allow in typical pH neutral river and stream water, and it is about in the 5 mg/l to 50 mg/l range that they start to end up being stressed and would be likely to perish. From this it is logical to conclude that also an ordinary strength landfill leachate would have to be watered down at least 10 to 100 times prior to it comes to be benign from the perspective of ammoniacal-nitrogen.

So, leachate water contamination is a very seriously unsafe pollution to our waterways and flows, and it is beneficial for society to use up a great deal of care and money to avoid leachate water pollution happening.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Digestate Evaporators for Anaerobic Digestion Plants Add Product Value and Aid Disposal

Digestate Evaporators for Anaerobic Digestion Plants Add Product Value and Aid Disposal

A scraped Plate Evaporator is nothing like a dishwasher. In one you place your scraped plates and in the other it scrapes its own plates to prevent the heat exchange surface building up a furring which would eventually foul the heat exchanger and stop it working.
We recommend that you follow the link in the title to read our article, about this new technique and how it is being applied to biogas plant digestates.

Friday, July 26, 2013

What Is Leachate? And How Is It Collected From The Bottom Of A Landfill?

Rainfall enters the landfill cell, and what isn't absorbed into the waste moves down to the basal filter. It passes through the pipe network, and rests in the sump. Pumps remove it from the sump, and may have to lift it 30 to 80 metres upward out of the top of the landfill. Make no mistake about how difficult this is. Even with modern pump technology to help, it is no easy feat to achieve this in the demanding conditions deep inside a landfill.

Leachate collection systems must be planned. The number, location, and size of the sumps are vital to an efficient operation of the landfill.

When designing sumps, the amount of leachate and liquid expected is the foremost concern. Areas in which rainfall is higher than average typically have larger sumps. This is called leachate management.

Leachate Management

A further criterion for leachate management sump planning is accounting for the pump capacity. The relationship of pump capacity and sump size is inversed. If the pump capacity is low, the volume of the sump should be larger than average. It is critical for the volume of the sump to be able to store the expected leachate between pumping cycles.

This relationship helps maintain a healthy operation. Sump pumps can function with preset phase times. If the flow is not predictable, a predetermined leachate height level can automatically switch the system on. Other conditions for sump planning are maintenance and pump drawdown.

Leachate Collection

Collection pipes typically convey the leachate by gravity to one or more sumps, depending upon the size of the area drained. Leachate collected in the sump is removed by pumping to a vehicle, to a holding facility for subsequent vehicle pickup, or to an on-site treatment facility.

Sump dimensions are governed by the amount of leachate to be stored, pump capacity, and minimum pump drawdown. The volume of the sump must be sufficient of hold the maximum amount of leachate anticipated between pump cycles, plus an additional volume equal to the minimum pump drawdown volume.

Sump size should also consider dimensional requirements for conducting maintenance and inspection activities. Sump pumps may operate with preset cycling times or, if leachate flow is less predictable, the pump may be automatically switched on when the leachate reaches a predetermined level.

Leachate Pipes

The leachate pipes should allow all the leachate to be pumped away, where it can be treated and the resultant slurry reintroduced either to the same landfill or sent to another. However, they can easily become clogged either by precipitation caused by chemical reactions due to the composition of the material that's in the landfill, or from a build-up of micro-organisms in the pipes, or due to the fact that unless designed correctly by experts the pipe walls may be crushed under the many thousands of tonnes of rubbish piled on top of them.

Summary

In the narrow environmental context leachate is therefore any liquid material that drains from land or stockpiled material and contains significantly elevated concentrations of undesirable organic and inorganic material derived from the material that it has passed through.


To prevent it building up inside landfills and escaping from the landfill liner, it has to be lifted out through  leachate collection system deep inside every modern landfill, using very robustly made pumps. This is an often costly challenge for pump manufacturers and landfill engineers alike, but the land around landfills and frequently also the drinking water supplies of the local people, depend upon this being done effectively both now, and for very many years into the future.

Find out more at the Leachate Website - www.leachate.co.uk.

Monday, July 15, 2013

Leachate from Waste and What Dribbles From Many Garbage Collection RCVs

Leachate Keeps on Getting a Bad Press!

A leachate soakaway lagoon excavated on the top of a
landfill to avoid leachate escapes from the
landfill perimeter, in the summer after heavy winter rain.
Leachate isn't that hard to handle when the right level of expertise is applied, but it does cost a fair amount of money, and leachate managers need to take care to provide constant vigilant, and mindful attention to leachate flow rates, especially to ensure that the site operator adequately controls rising rates of leachate production due to periods of wet weather.

Leachate spilt during collection from premises during wet weather is a big factor in high rainfall countries and regions such as around Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, and it really does need collection in tanks beneath the refuse collection vehicles. But, the collection service operator then also often has to treat the leachate once it is brought back to the waste depot, and that may be harder to achieve than collecting it in tank below the bodies of the refuse collection vehicles in the first place.

Also, many landfill operators have been caught out when, after wet weather, landfill leachate flows can rise from previously created leachate just when least expected, and this can be several months after the rainfall that caused it to be produced has had time to percolate down, and out of the waste again, under gravity. in our second article the authority responsible seems to have set up good contingency haulage plans if case of high future wet weather leachate flows.

The extracts form the two articles which follow, have been selected to illustrate the points we make above.

ᔥLeachate leaves a stinking trail - New Straits Times:

FOUL SMELL: Residents in Kepong are complaining about the stench left behind by the garbage compactors servicing their areas

KUALA LUMPUR: THE problem of leachate leaking onto the streets as garbage compactors move around to collect rubbish is a common occurrence in many neighborhoods despite an instruction from a former Alam Flora   chief executive officer a decade ago to install buckets on the trucks to stop spillage.  It is raising the ire of residents.
Two locations checked by Streets had the same problem.
Taman Kepong resident Sue Ng said that every morning when the Alam Flora truck turns up behind Restoran Lima Bintang, it leaves a trail of leachate on the road.
"The stench is unbearable," she said. "At the same time, the restaurant workers have refused to wash down the leachate from their garbage, despite being asked to."
"The contractors should either given a stern warning or have their contracts cancelled," [resident, Jack Tan] said.
ᔥThe county signs contract for stinky liquid overflow - The News Herald

The harder the rain, the bigger the leachate load.

Heavy precipitation means more water runs through the county landfill, slipping and sliding through the refuse, eventually draining out as a clear, stinky liquid called leachate. And Bay County must haul the end product to a treatment facility at Panama City Beach.
Big rains mean the county needs a back-up hauler and now a New Jersey company will help out. The County Commission recently approved a contract with Dana Transport Inc., which has a Panama City office. It was the low-bidder, offering $23.50 per 1,000 gallons hauled. The second-place bidder offered $60 per 1,000 gallons.
“It’s really a contract to supplement our efforts,” said Glenn Ogborn, the county’s solid waste superintendent.
The amount of leachate hauled per year varies by rainfall. In fiscal year 2012, the county moved 5.8 million gallons from the Steelfield Road Landfill, but in 1999, it carried 14.7 million gallons, due to major storms, Ogborn said.
We hope that you found this article interesting, and that you will give us the benefits of your thoughts on this subject by adding your comments in the box provided for that (usually to be seen below the video.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Leachate Treatment Plant Design



Leachate Treatment Plant Design strategies can vary quite considerably because the individual requirements for leachate treatment on each landfill site varies site by site, and through the life of each site. The starting point for any Leachate Treatment Plant Design is always to establish the strengths, composition and volumes of leachate and predict those into the future at least for the initial design life of the leachate treatment facility proposed. The expert skills available from the Leachate Expert website www.leachate.co.uk can assist you in the specification, design, build, installation and commissioning of the most appropriate solution for your site. Within our expertize is also the operation and maintenance of the plants designed by the "Leachate Expert".

Process Design and Implementation - Based on a minimum of information we will work with our clients to provide a practical and economical process design which will then form the foundation of the project. Each project engagement can range from providing feasibility studies, design layouts and process flows, project management, specification, HAZOP’s, P&ID’s, landfill products and plant support.

Leachate Treatment Plant Design is evolving, and will continue to do so as modifications in landfill practices continually add the higher polluting risk arising from sanitary landfill leachates at many landfill sites. Historically, and up and until the early 1970′s, sites for the disposal of domestic wastes were normally small and provided for local waste disposal needs only, each serving a fairly minimal geographical area. Controls applied by regulatory authorities were very basic. These sites were also characterized by reduced input rates, high ash content of wastes from open fires and at the site, combined with the low densities of uncovered wastes which allowed all the waste to continue to gain access to air, and offered a level of negative environmental effects that were typically only locally felt and restricted in severity.

How Does a Modern Landfill Work?

In those days there was little or no Leachate Treatment Plant Design, because smoke, flies and vermin, combined with iron-staining and developments of fungi and micro-organisms in neighborhood streams, were generally tolerated as the acceptable cost of waste disposal. However, everything has changed now, and in most nations the savings from disposal of domestic wastes in what were no more than un-engineered and largely un-controlled “dumps” or “tips”, are considered not worth the environmental damage they do.

Now Leachate Treatment Plant Design is a specialist and highly technically sophisticated subject due to the high strength of modern leachate, and in most countries (unless pre-sorting removes a high proportion of putrescible waste) there is still a a continual increase in wastewater strength. Also, in recent months the volume of wastewater generated at many landfills, due to a wet winter, has exceeded the treatment capacity, resulting in an increase in wastewater being hauled to off-site disposal. To eliminate hauling, and meet more stringent discharge standards from the local POTW a new or revised Leachate Treatment Plant Design may be needed.

The Leachate Expert at www.leachate.co.uk is involved in the evaluation through design and construction of new and better (lower cost) leachate treatment plants. Initially, The Leachate Expert will evaluated plant flow and wastewater quality data to determine the required capacity. The Leachate Expert then prepares a management plan to address the different scenarios available to the site for leachate wastewater disposal. These scenarios investigated usually include: (1) pretreatment and discharge to either a public sewer, (2) or the landfill (i.e., recirculation), (3) complete treatment and reuse on site; and complete treatment and watercourse discharge.

Saturday, April 06, 2013

Back to Basics in Landfill Leachate Treatment


Landfill leachate is generated from liquids existing in the waste as it enters a landfill or from rainwater that passes through the waste within the facility. The leachate consists of different organic and inorganic compounds that may be either dissolved or suspended. An essential part of maintaining any landfill is managing the leachate through proper treatment methods designed to prevent pollution into surrounding ground and surface waters. Even when a landfill is located in an arid area, leachate may be produced during wet weather periods, and its consideration remains necessary, although management may be by evaporation in many cases.

If leachates have a distinguishing characteristic, it is that flows are variable. Flows change according to the weather. The highest leachate generation will occur after rainy periods, decreasing during dry and when the leachate from previous events ceases to percolate through the waste and appear at the base of the landfill. Therefore, waste concentrations can change dramatically according to the weather conditions and as the waste matures over the life of the landfill. It follows that, no landfill leachate is constant over time, and no two leachates are the same. However, large landfills operated according to the EU landfill directive with less than 50% recycling taking place before it reaches the waste are remarkably similar when age of waste and leachate is taken into account.

Landfill Leachate Treatment Strategies

Landfill leachate treatment strategies can vary quite considerably subject to the individual challenges on each site as well as relative strengths, composition and volumes of leachate. The experts at the "Leachate Expert website" (see www.leachate.co.uk ) have designed dozens of successful leachate treatment facilities over the last 25 years, and can assist you in the specification, design, build, installation & commissioning of the most appropriate solution for your site. Naturally, we can thereafter provide operation and maintenance services.

Based on a minimum of information the leachate experts work with their clients to provide a practical and economical process design which will then form the foundation of the project. Each project consultancy involvement can range from providing feasibility studies, design layouts and process flows, to project management, specification, construction procurement, landfill product selection, HAZOPs, P&IDs, etc, and plant operational support.

A very wide range of treatment processes have been applied to leachate treatment with varying success. The processes which have been consistently successfully applied, for municipal waste landfill leachate from controlled landfills, are biological processes designed by specialist leachate process designers.

In many countries standard national discharge consents limit the applicability of biological processes due to their high stringency of the purity requirements, and removal of salts. Thus can be the result of consents which are designed for simplicity as national standards, and which adopt a requirement that all discharges must meet a high quality standard suitable for all cases.

Regulators often suggest that leachate should be pumped to a sewer for treatment at a urban Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP). However, this may historically have been driven by concerns that leachate treatment on site is challenging and difficult to achieve reliably, than by a detailed appraisal of the best options available. This however is no longer true, especially for designs from experienced specialist LTP designers, such as those at the "Leachate Expert website".

Is Leachate Treatment at Any Sewage Works A Good Idea Environmentally?

In reality it is not usually a good policy to treat strong leachate from modern sanitary landfills after discharging it into sewer. The act of mixing it with sewage makes it more difficult to treat by sewage treatment plants. Sewage works are not designed for such high ammonia effluents. Leachate has an extremely high ammoniacal nitrogen ("ammonia”) concentration when compared with the much weaker contamination levels in domestic, commercial, and industrial foul sewage.

This is why treating strong leachate at a Wastewater Treatment Plant, as if it were sewage, is  not efficient and leads to unnecessarily cost. Unless the WWTP has a high efficiency nitrifying process set-up already ammonia removal may be very poor. The result is that ammonia, which is one of the most potentially damaging types of contaminants in leachate, may simply be being diluted by its addition to sewage which is much weaker in ammonia, and the WWT may comply with its discharge consent by dilution, and even not treat the ammonia.

Friday, March 01, 2013

What Every Leachate Treatment Engineer Should Know About Contracts


O.K.! In our headline we have to admit that we changed the title to add in "Leachate Treatment", and the course we are recommending here is a general course, aimed at all engineers. However, the IChemE Forms of Contract are particularly useful for those like Leachate Treatment Engineers and Managers, who need a form of contract which is designed for a process plant.

The ICE offers similar courses, but for a leachate treatment plant contracts they are not nearly as good, because they are all about getting a structure built, and nothing much beyond that.

Process Plants are different. A bridge is finished and providing value as soon as the red-tape is cut, and the road over it, is opened. 


A process plant is different. To have a process plant built and sitting there is no good to anyone. A process plant like a leachate treatment plant, has to be commissioned, and working to produce the treated effluent to the quality specified by the discharge consent.

There are IChemE Forms of Contract for process plant contracts which suit every type of financing as well, so attending this course is really important for those in the leachate treatment industry, and if you are active in this area, we recommend attendance.

The details of the course follow:
The "What Every Engineer Should Know About Contracts" course will provide you with a
detailed understanding of contract law as it relates to engineering and construction contracts. It is taking place twice in the UK this year: 1-2 May in Rugby and 15-16 October in London.
Suitable for engineers of all disciplines, the course examines the law of contract and of tort within which engineering and construction contracts are made and operate.
It also looks at:
  • the structure and essential contents of these contracts risk allocation and its links with payments
  • the role of the contract administrator why the various standard forms of contract say what they say 
It is ideal for managers involved with contracts, particularly those who have moved into a procurement, project or contract management role, as well as engineers who are developing their skills across the range of business activities.

Click here for full course details and to register

Download the course brochure

You may also be interested in: 

IChemE Forms of Contract

12-13 June 2013, Redcar, UK
19-20 June 2013, London, UK

Helping those who will prepare, tender or manage a contract using the IChemE forms to understand their structure, main provisions and features, and the key differences between them. Fully updated to cover the new 2013 suite of UK contracts. Find out more here.

Please note that this is not a sponsored recommendation. We make no money from the course promoter if you attend.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

What Is A Membrane Bioreactor?

What is a membrane bioreactor
So you desire to understand what this really is? You would be surprised how often individuals inquire about that question by seeking the world wide web. That's the reason we now have composed this article to describe what family or friends will feel you unaware or even ridiculous for inquiring the things they might think would have been a foolish issue.

In principle, a membrane bioreactor combines biological treatment with a separation process using microfiltration membranes. An advantage of the net is that you can ask these queries about just about any topic, and always with no stress that your buddies think of what you ought really to already know about!


So, I want to now get on with answering your problem by what a membrane bioreactor or "MBR" really is.

It is a sophisticated water treatment system commonly used for strong organic effluent treatment as in for example the aerobic treatment of landfill leachate.


First, a Membrane Bioreactor consists of a reactor tank and a microfiltration unit, which can be defined as: the use of membranes to allow the almost complete elimination of suspended solids from the effluent, with the conservation of all bacteria in the reactor while also removing BOD and COD and ammoniacal nitrogen concentration which is largely converted to the nitrate form in solution.

To make that clearer, here is a list of instances in which a membrane bioreactor might be used, as follows:


  • It is also an MBR when referred to by many people, and also some will include an 
  • MBR in a Reverse Osmosis Plant when treating landfill leachate.

So let's attempt to simplify items.

These can be classified into the following types of MBR Plant,as follows:


  • MBR with Reverse Osmosis, 
  • MBR with Activated Carbon, 
  • MBR with Nanofiltration etc.

The main of those is:

MBR with Reverse Osmosis

Their unique characteristic is the fact that in the reactor, the micro-organisms which are mostly bacteria transform dissolved polluted matter into biomass, and NH4 nitrogen (“ammonia”) into nitrate. In this way biodegradable organic contaminants are eliminated by the bioreactor as well as a number of metals which are oxidized into mostly insoluble compounds. The suspended solids are then eliminated from the flow by the microfiltration membrane.

The key issue, to consider about membrane filtration, is that it allows the retention of non-soluble molecules having a high molecular weight and in that way increases their residence/retention time and also as a result increases the extent to which of biodegradation occurs inside the biological reactor (bioreactor).

Now that you have see this article you should know far more about the use of membrane bioreactors or "MBRs" for leachate treatment, and this will, we hope have made it easier for, you. 

Using this method of this research you have applied the services of the net intelligently to answer a really distinct query which can be important to you at this time resolve. 

Now reader, you can instantly compliment yourself for your learning and by educating yourself, most of us need to obtain increased good results in your lifestyles, so we surely think that you're going to experience that as well

Uncover how you can use the MBR with Reverse Osmosis treatment system by visiting the membrane bioeractors page on the website at leachate.co.uk/main/leachate-treatment/how-a-membrane-bioreactor-is-used-to-treat-landfill-leachate/.

Friday, February 01, 2013

Answers to Current Questions Being Asked About Leachate Treatment

Answers to Questions About Leachate
We have compiled a list of the most common questions being asked at the moment about leachate treatment and leachate management for landfill sites. Top of the list of these are:



  1. What Is Leachate?
  2. What Is A Leachate Attenuation Zone?
  3. How To Calculate Leachate Generation?
  4. What Are Leachate?
  5. What Causes Leachate?


These are all questions which are answered at our main web site at www.leachate.co.uk .

However, to assist our readers I will provide quick answers below:

1.What Is Leachate?

Leachate is the contaminated liquid which runs out of another material, in our case we are talking about landfill leachate, and the dirty water that accumulates in, or runs out of the bottom of, landfill sites.

2. What Is A Leachate Attenuation Zone?

A Leachate Attenuation Zone is a soil material which is only partially permeable through which leachate flows (usually by gravity) and as it flows through slowly it becomes less contaminated ("cleaner"). The reduction in contamination can take place by biological action or by physico-chemical action.

3. How To Calculate Leachate Generation?

This can be difficult and there are several sophisticated water balance modelling softwares which will attempt to do this for you. The problem with using them is in understanding how they work and whether you can trust them to give the right answer. I usually carry out a water balance using  a spreadsheet, on an annualized basis. Contact me if you need assistance with a water balance problem for a landfill at http://ipptsassociates.co.uk/contact/  .

4. What Are Leachate?

Although this comes up as a question a lot online, it is grammatically incorrect and makes no real sense. See answer 1. above.

5. What Causes Leachate?

In modern landfills which do not accept liquids for disposal, it is mostly the organic matter (food scraps, grass mowings etc) which are in a municipal waste landfill which decay to form leachate. During decay, the cells of the organic material rupture and the contents of the cells dissolves in rainfall trickling through the leachate producing a smelly, and quite often black liquid which over time (if left in the landfill) usually turns into an amber liquid which often smells of ammonia, but may just smell "earthy".

For more information about commonly asked leachate questions visit our website at the leachate expert  .

Anaerobic Digestion News: UK Energy from Waste - Don't Get Hurt By The Waste...

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