Local treatment of leachate from MSW landfills using soil plant - system

Abstract

Landfill leachate is identified as an environmental concern, as it contains both eutrophicating and hannful substances. Collection and treatment of leachate is therefore a necessity and most landfills in Sweden treat the leachate before discharge into any recipient. More and more landfills changes to local treatment and at Moskogen and Hedeskoga landfills Soil-Plant (SP) systems were designed to replace the conventional treatment of leachate at the municipal sewage treatment plant. Installed in 1998, the SP-system at Moskogen have removal efficiency today for some key parameters of about: 97% for BOD; 41 % for COD; and for NH4-N 99%. The SP-system at Hedeskoga was planted with cuttings (Salix) in the spring of 1999 and the system was put into operation in the summer and the removal efficiencies for pollutants in the ponds was in July for: BOD 80%; COD 65%; Tot-N 87%; and NH4-N 94%.