Landfills and waste water treatment plants as sources of ... - GKSS

STUDY 1: LANDFILLS AS SOURCES
4. Study 1: Landfills as sources of polyfluorinated compounds,
polybrominated diphenyl ethers and synthetic musk fragrances to
ambient air
4.1 Introduction
According to the German Ordinance on Compatible Storage of Waste from Human
Settlements and on Biological-Treatment Facilities (Abfallablagerungsverordung, AbfAblV) a
landfill is defined as “waste-management facility for the storage of waste above the earth's
surface (above-ground)”(AbfAblV 2001). In general, landfills contain a variety of different
types of waste including household waste and waste from industrial sources and products.
Household waste represents two-thirds of the municipal solid waste stream. Almost 70 % of
municipal solid waste is disposed to landfills (OECD 2001). In particular, sanitary landfills
accumulate huge quantities of a wide variety of consumables, including general and
hazardous wastes, electric and electronic equipment and compost (St-Amand et al. 2008).
Since the European Commission Directive 99/31/EC which constituted the classification and
separation of waste prior to the deposit, waste treatment is strongly regulated in the European
Union. In Germany for example, the Ordinance on Landfills and Long-Term Storage
Facilities (Deponieverordnung, DepV), demands separation and pre-treatment of waste either
thermically by incineration or mechanically-biologically in order to reduce the volume prior
to the storage on landfill sites (DepV 2002). Therefore the total amount of waste is supposed
to decrease overtime (Slack et al. 2004). On the other hand, alternative disposal practices,
such as recycling and incineration, still generate waste that is to be landfilled (Slack et al.
2004). Figure 8 displays how a product is predominantly disposed to a landfill and can be
released into the environment via different pathways.
In general, emissions from landfills can be addressed to different forms of release: gaseous
emissions, formation of particulate matter and lecheate (Slack et al. 2005). In this thesis the
focus is on atmospheric emissions from landfill sites. The other emission pathways are not
discussed in detail. Various studies have been conducted on the environmental fate and
release of volatile organic compounds (VOC) from landfills to the atmosphere (Allen et al.
1997; James and Stack 1997; Kim et al. 2006a). Studies about semi-volatile organic
compounds, such as PCBs and PAHs usually focus on leachate concentrations (Vollmuth and
Niessner 1995; Marttinen et al. 2003; Herbert et al. 2006) and the impact of waste
incineration plants (Dyke 2003; Capuano et al. 2005). However, little is known about the
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