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.