Evaluation and Risk Assessment of Alternatives for Extending the Life of Landfills

摘要

Given the difficulty, as well as the high cost, to site and construct municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills it is incumbent on landfill operators to evaluate all practical measures to extend the useful life of existing landfills. This necessitates not only identifying potential methods to extend their life, but also the means to assess at what time horizons in the landfill's life such measures are cost effective. Some typical examples of methods to extend their life include; size reduction of incoming waste, improved in place compaction density, use of alternative daily cover, waste diversion, and accelerating the degradation to enhance attendant settlement on the MSW. Most, if not all, of these methods incur capital/operating costs that must be evaluated in light of the time horizon the life of the landfill can potentially be extended. The methodology for this analysis is presented using the existing landfill at Andersen Air Force Base (AAFB), Guam, as a model for the procedure.