Physical and chemical methods for the characterization of hazardous wastes

Abstract

Numerous test methods have been proposed and developed to evaluate the hazards associated with handling and disposal of wastes in landfills. The major concern is the leaching of toxic constituents from the wastes. The fate of hazardous constituents in landfilled wastes is highly dependent on the physical and chemical characteristics of the waste. Thus, the primary objective in the selection of waste characterization procedures should be focused on those methods that gauge the fate of the waste's hazardous constituents in a specific landfill environment. Waste characterization in the United States has centered around the characteristics of ignitability, corrosivity, reactivity, and toxicity. The strategy employed in the development of most regulatory waste characterization procedures has been a pass or fail approach, usually tied to some form of a mismanagement scenario for that waste. For example, USEPA has chosen the disposal of a waste in a municipal waste landfill as a mismanagement scenario for the development of the waste leaching tests to determine the toxicity characteristic. Many wastes, such as large-volume utility wastes or mining wastes, are not disposed of in municipal waste landfills. As a consequence, more effort is needed in the development of waste leaching tests that determine the long-term leaching characteristics of that waste in the landfill environment in which the waste is to be disposed. Waste leaching models also need to be developed and tested as to their ability to simulate actual disposal environments. These models need to be compared with laboratory leaching tests, and, if practical, coupled with groundwater transport models.