UK Water Research Centre Leachate Research
During the 1970s the realisation grew that an increasing number of UK landfills were producing sustained polluting discharges of leachate. At that time landfills were still largely lacking in engineering design in the UK and the only containment landfills were those that were so due to the fortuitous presence of a clay geology.
As a result it was still quite difficult to obtain leachate samples from landfills which could be considered to be full strength and characteristic of future likely leachate strengths. The Water Research Centre (WRc), which was at that time government financed and run, was where most of the nation’s water industry research was carried out.
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“The strength of these leachates is indicated by their biochemical oxygen demand (BOD). Settled domestic sewage typically has a BOD of 250 ppm (mg/l). The extremes of BOD measured in tip leachatesrange from less than 10 ppm (mg/l) ... to 18,000 ppm for recently emplaced material.”
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It was at the WRc, at this time that Howard Robinson (Enviros, Water Processes Director) started the work on leachate which he continues to this day.
For the first characterisation studies it was necessary to create concrete “waste test cells” into which was placed pulverised domestic refuse and compacted, and then each was covered with capping materials.
Leachate was generated over a period of time, and samples were removed regularly and analysed to watch the progression of leachate from initial acetogenic to methanogenic stages.
Interestingly, the effects of aeration and recirculation on leachate strength were also studied in these cells.
It was here that all the basic work was carried out to bring forward UK understanding of how MSW leachate, matures and evolves over time, between the mid nineteen-seventies and the mid-eighties.
The photo shows the test cells at WRc’s Stevenage laboratory being filled with pulverised waste, and is taken from the WRc’s in-house research journal of June 1978. The person seen guiding a sling full of waste to its resting place in a test cell is rumoured to be the young Howard Robinson himself!
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