Landfill leachate treatment in assisted landfill bioreactor

Landfill is the major disposal route of municipal solid waste (MSW) in most Asian countries. Leachate from landfill presents a strong wastewater that needs intensive treatment before discharge. Direct recycling was proposed as an effective alternative for leachate treatment by taking the landfill as a bioreactor. This process was proved not only considerably reducing the pollution potential of leachate, but also enhancing organic degradation in the landfill. However, as this paper shows, although direct leachate recycling was effective in landfilled MSW with low food waste fraction (3.5%, w/w), it failed in MSW containing 54% food waste, as normally noted in Asian countries. The initial acid stuck would inhibit methanogenesis to build up, hence strong leachate was yielded from landfill to threaten the quality of receiving water body. We demonstrated the feasibility to use an assisted bioreactor landfill, with a well-decomposed refuse layer as ex-situ anaerobic digester to reducing COD loading in leachate. By doing so, the refuse in simulated landfill column (2.3 m high) could be stabilized in 30 weeks while the COD in leachate reduced by 95% (61000 mg/L to 3000 mg/L). Meanwhile, the biogas production was considerably enhanced, signaling by the much greater amount and much higher methane content in the biogas. © 2006 Science Press. All rights reserved.