Investigation of influence of lapes landfill leachate on ground and surface water pollution with heavy metals

Bronius Jaskelevičius, Vaida Lynikiene
2009 Journal of Environmental Engineering and Landscape Management  
As a result of global and intense production the waste disposal problems become more and more urgent. Waste processing, utilization and recycling is to a certain extent limited by many economic, organisational and technological factors, and this inevitably encourages waste disposal in landfills. Physical, chemical and biological interactions in landfill cell result in formation of landfill gas and harmful leachate. Because of lack of control, together with usual communal waste, industrial waste
more » ... was also dumped to landfills, therefore gas and leachate produced include large amounts of toxic compounds. Once hazardous waste materials occured in landfills, later they vastly expanded the whole spectrum of toxic materials and compounds. In the landfill environment chemical properties of surface and ground water and concentration of separate components are governed by seepage of leachate and industrial solutants into soil and ground layers and their transport by subsurface waters. Influence on the environment exerted by heavy metals contained in the leachate of Lapės Landfill is discussed in this paper. Properties of industrial waste material influenced order of the main pollutants: the most important elements in this case are Cu, Ni, Zn, Pb, Mn, Cr and other ions, the sulphides of these metals and other toxic compounds. The First Landfill field is more polluted with heavy metal polutants than the Third field. In all the samples iron concentration is the greatest exceeding even 200 times the admissible value allowed (Norm HN 24:2003). Sources (springs) S11 and S17 are least contaminated with heavy metals. The greatest groundwater pollution was found in monitoring bore G13s. The leachate processed in purification devices is released to the Third stream. Heavy metal concentrations in waters of this stream are low and they further decrease downstream because the pollutants are diluted.
doi:10.3846/1648-6897.2009.17.131-139 fatcat:oilwodcaxjgnlo23tv3gdtzxw4