An industrial leachate treatment system based on the filter-bed technique

Abstract

The treatment of leachate from municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills has been in focus
during the last decade. Many different types of treatment systems have been established
including co-treatment with municipal wastewater. This, however, has been not favoured
in Sweden due to the difficulties in optimizing the treatment process and utilizing of the
excess sludge. As a result of the recommendations of the Swedish Environmental
Protection Authority, large number of in-situ treatment plants has been constructed in
MSW landfills. Peat has shown to be an attractive filter media since it is a cheap and
widely available natural material. Various studies have demonstrated that peat is capable
to remove pollutants from wastewaters and leachate. However, only a few studies have
been directed towards leachate treatment from industrial landfills.
The main objective of the following project is to develop a treatment method for leachate,
generated in the landfill that contains discarded electrical and electronic equipment as
well as residues from the recycling industry ( e.g. car wrecking). It is investigated whether
the mixture of peat and carbon-rich ash could be utilized as a filter material in the filterbed, providing a low cost and simple technology for the treatment of the industrial
leachate. The paper describes the design of the treatment system, and its start-up and
operation during different seasons. The importance of the attempts to document the
details of construction, operational parameters, performance and efficiency of the
treatment plant are also discussed. The preliminary results are presented in the paper and
contribute valuable information in order to optimize such a treatment system.