Biological control of leachate from municipal landfills

Landfilling is still a popular way for municipal solid waste (MSW) treatment. Leachate generated from landfills is becoming a great threat to the surroundings as it contains high concentrations of toxic substances. How to control leachate migration and to protect environmental pollution is now a concern for many environmentalists. In this work, eight effective microorganisms (EMs) were isolated from wastewater, sludge and soil samples by enrichment culturing techniques and used for leachate migration control in columns and pilot experiments. The preliminary experiments reveal that the EMs could remove 25% and 40% of chemical oxygen demand (COD) from leachate in fine sand and sabulous clay columns, respectively. An aquifer system was designed to simulate in-situ control for leachate migration with EMs. The EMs were injected into the simulated aquifer and formed a permeable biological barrier. The experimental results show that the barrier removed 95% of COD and approximately 100% inorganic nitrogen, that is, nitrate-N plus nitrite-N plus ammonia-N, from the migrating leachate. CO2 production, redox potential and microbial number were monitored simultaneously in the aquifer during the experiment to assess the EMsʹ activities and the effect of the bio-barrier. The data indicate that the EMs isolated in this work had high activities and were effective for organic and nitrogenous contaminant removal throughout the experiment.