Abstract
This work evaluated and compared potential impacts related to the accumulation and/or release of heavy metals resulting from the application of different types of stabilized waste to soil. Namely, the following three types of flows were considered: waste produced by aerobic bio-stabilization of municipal solid waste at a Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT) plant, and compost produced either from aerobic composting or from a combination of anaerobic and aerobic biodegradation processes. After a preliminary characterization of the materials (organic matter content, volatile solid, and heavy metals content), heavy metal accumulation in soil caused by possible long-term application of these organic materials was evaluated by implementing a discretized mass balance based on the total content of the heavy metals in each type of solid matrix investigated. In addition, results of percolation leaching tests performed on each type of material were presented and discussed. Results highlight that although the total content of heavy metals of the three types of materials differed considerably, with the MBT waste presenting the highest concentrations, the results of the leaching percolation tests were quite similar.
Highlights
The European Commission has been strongly promoting the enactment of a circular economic model aimed at preserving natural resources and minimizing landfill utilization
Two main strategies have been adopted for the management of this fraction aerobic and/or anaerobic biodegradation of the source-segregated Organic Fraction of Municipal Solid Waste (OFMSW), with production of compost and digestate, and mechanical–biological treatment (MBT) of residual MSW to produce bio stabilised waste, besides waste-derived fuels aimed at energy recovery (Abdullahi et al, 2008; Di Lonardo et al, 2016)
Leaching behavior In our previous studies, we investigated the leaching behavior of the waste materials considered in this work (Pantini et al, 2015a), as shown in Table 1, where the contents of organic matter and heavy metals are reported
Summary
The European Commission has been strongly promoting the enactment of a circular economic model aimed at preserving natural resources and minimizing landfill utilization. In this framework, Member States have taken actions to divert biodegradable municipal waste from landfills and to reduce impacts during their management due to their putrefying nature, with respect to both biogas and and leachate emissions. Requirements are expressed in terms of total composition (e.g. total content of heavy metals), not leaching behaviour It is, well established that the potential risks to the environment related to the use or disposal of a Evaluation of the effects of bio stabilised
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