3.

0 Anaysis problem
3.1 Introduction
Due the increasing population, various developments, industrial and material consumption around
the world, have been resulted in an associated increase in the quantity of industrial. Hence, the
proper treatment of industrial and municipal solid wastes needs in considering constituting to
environmental protection. Landfills create a major environmental problem as well as the
production of a liquid from decomposes waste known as a leachate when precipitation infiltrates
which contained a large amount of contaminant. Landfill leachate can categorize as a high strength
wastewater to consist of many chemicals which is a potential risk to human health. The leachate
generated from municipal solid waste (MSW) are often disposed without any appropriate control
facility, although the possibility that they may cause contamination of soil, surface and ground
water.

Nowadays, various option an alternative of technology for landfill leachate are used to treat
leachate properly and efficiently. There are four major groups for leachate treatment technologies
are leachate transfer including recycling, lagooning and combined treatment with domestic
sewage, biodegradation including aerobic and anaerobic process, physico-chemical process
including chemical oxidation, adsorption, chemical precipitation, coagulation/flocculation and air
stripping and lastly membrane filtration including microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration and
reverse osmosis.

3.2 Leachate
Leachate defined as liquid from rain water that has percolated through solid waste. Leachate from
landfill usually contains extracted, dissolved and suspended materials, some of which may be
harmful. Thus, landfill leachate can be toxic, acidic and rich in organic group such as chemical
oxygen demand (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD) and ammonium. As a leachate is one
of the environmental issues since it is potential health effect to human and biodiversity, landfill
have to be designed to minimize the formation of leachate and amount of leachate. Therefore,
landfill should design, planning and operation that involved the application of a variety of
scientific, engineering and economic principles in control and minimize the leachate migration
into natural environment.
3.3 Composition and characteristic of landfill leachate
When water percolates through solid wastes that are undergoing decomposition, both biological
materials and chemical constituents are leached into solution. Leachate is composed of high
concentration organic content (humic acid and fulvic acid) and inorganic compound (suspended
solid, heavy metal, ammonia nitrogen and inorganic salts) substances. Consequently, these
contaminants need to be removed due to their toxicity or become hazardous to the environment .
Besides that, the chemical compositions of leachate vary due to factors such as age of the landfill,
solid waste composition, hydrogeology of the site, site climate or season, biological and chemical
processes occurring in the landfill and the amount of precipitation and percolation of rainwater,
landfill morphology, waste depth, landfill condition and operation of facilities.

Age of landfill is one of the main factors that will effects leachate characteristic. Table 3.0
shows the characteristic of landfill leachate versus the age of the landfill. In young landfill contains
a large amount of biodegradable organic matter which means a rapid anaerobic fermentation
occurs. This process is resulting in volatile fatty acids (VFA) as the major fermentation products.
A high moisture content or water content in the solid waste depends on acid fermentation is
enhanced. This early stage is known as acidogenic phase and release above 80 % of the organic
contents. The age landfill tends the biological decomposition of the deposited waste change from
a shorter initial period to longer decomposition period with acidogenic and methanogenic phase.
As a landfill becomes older, the methanogenic phase occurs. At this stage, microorganisms will
expand in the waste and the volatile fatty acid (VFA) is changed to biogas (CH4, CO2). Then, the
compound such as humic acid and fulvic acid resulted as a product. Consequently, leachate from
the differing stages contain different their constituents. In general, young locate more polluted than
old leachate which it tends to be acidic due to presence of volatile fatty acid with the pH normal
at range about 6-7 or lower. Old leachate produces low COD and low biodegradability BOD5/
COD at ratio < 0.1.

The characteristics of the landfill leachate usually be characterized by the basic parameter
is chemical oxygen demand (COD), five-day biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5), BOD5/ COD
(biodegradability), total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN), nitrogen- ammonium (N-NH4), pH, total
dissolved solids (TDS), turbidity, alkalinity, colour, conductivity, salts, xenobiotic organic
substances and heavy metal. Even though, leachate composition may differ broadly in aerobic,
acetogenic, methanogenic and stabilization stages of the waste evolution, which are classified
leachate into three major parts is young, intermediate and old. Also, biological treatment is more
effective for young leachate with a high BOD5/COD ratio and less effective in treating leachate
from intermediate landfill with a low BOD5/COD or high concentrations of toxic constituents.
Collection and treatment of landfill leachate before discharge must be implemented in order to
meet the required effluent standard. It is because, the discharge of landfill leachate can affect the
environment as they may percolate through soils and sub soils, causing extensive pollution of
ground and also surface water if untreated properly and safely disposed.
 Types of Youn Intermediate Old
leachate g
Age <5 5-10 >10
pH <6.5 6.5-7.5 >7.5
COD (mg/L) >10,000 4000-10,000 <4000
BOD5/ COD 0.5-1.0 0.1-0.5 <0.1
Organic 80% volatile fatty 5%-30% VFA + Humic and fulvic
Compounds acid Humic and fluvic acid
(VFA) acid
Ammonia nitrogen <400 N.A >400
( mg/L)
TOC/COD <0.3 0.3-0.5 >0.5
Kjeldahl nitrogen 0.1-0.2 N.A N.A
(g/L)
Heavy metal Low to medium Low Low
(mg/L)
Biodegradability Important Medium Low
N.A = Not available

Table 3.0: Characteristics of landfill leachate versus the age of landfill

2.4 Environmental pollution
Municipal solid waste (MSW) is a category of diverse waste which is generated from different
sources such as residential, commercial, institutional facilities, construction. and demolition
activities, municipal services and agriculture. Landfills are today the most commonly used
methods for waste disposal by far. In most landfills leachate is composed of the liquid that has
entered the landfill from external sources such as surface drainage, rainfall, groundwater and water
from underground springs and the liquid produced from the decomposition of waste. Landfill
leachate became toxicity with containing a large amount of organic matter, inorganic compound,
as well as heavy metal, high content of ammonium ions and inorganic salts.
Nowadays, many countries around the world is facing the challenge in the landfilling
practice due to environmental pollution from leachate. Landfill leachate often exceeds standard
for drinking water and surface water. Commonly, landfill leachate has significant impending to
polluted soil, surface water and groundwater. The frequent pathway for leachate to the
environment is from the bottom of the landfill through the unsaturated soil layers to the
groundwater and from groundwater through hydraulic connections to surface water. The
significant potential of environmental pollution may also come from the discharge of leachate
through treatment plant or from untreated leachate to nature environment. The most important
factors influencing the pollution due to landfill leachate are the concentration and flux, the landfill
sitting include the hydrogeological setting and the basic quality volume and sensitivity of the
receiving groundwater and surface water. Landfill leachate frequently retained in the surrounding
area of the landfill unless it reaches the surface and then leading to runoff. Thereby, groundwater
moves down and pollutant migration from the landfill site increased. The major concern with the
movement of leachate into the subsurface aquifer below unlined and lined landfills is the fate of
the constituents found in leachate. Mechanisms that are operative in the attenuation of the
constituents found in leachate as the leachate migrates through the subsurface soil include
mechanical filtration, precipitation and co- precipitation, sorption, gaseous exchange, dilution and
dispersion and microbial activity.
The migration of leachate through compression and compaction thereby cause of refuse to
reach field capacity. Field capacity is referring to the quantity of water that can be held against the
pull of gravity. The potential quantity of leachate is the amount of moisture within the landfill in
excess of the landfill filed capacity that leads contaminates underground water sources below. The
climate is one factor that may also produce by leachate volume. Leachate production in warm
climates is higher than in colder climates. Hence, the public should give awareness the
environmental pollution due to leachate and need to control of leachate in landfills.