A landfill in New Jersey has been making the local
news lately. A perfect storm, literally, is amplifying the stench of its
waste emissions, and nearby residents are fuming. Not only is the landfill
leachate affected by exceptionally wet weather, but that's where it begins. The
extra water acts as a vehicle to bring more garbage goop to the surface than
usual, but it also inhibits the fill's methane-capture system. In order to fix
these problems, over ten acres of previously-covered garbage had to be
uncovered.
Counter to common sense, garbage gets even hotter as it
sits there. Microbes break it down, and their "work" produces tons of
heat. Uncovering a dump of refuse that's already been rotting is a great was to
fill any town with a powerful stench.
Combine all this with the right wind pattern, and you've
got a landfill that actually smells like a landfill.
***
Usually, landfills do a pretty good job of smelling like
nothing. First, the fill must be chosen or placed in the right spot relative to
the interested parties who inhabit the nearby land. Upwind and upstream is the
key. Winds don't blow from one direction only, and at certain times of year
they can change direction entirely. Water always flows downhill, but the course
it takes to get there could change over time depending on the intensity of rain
events and changes to the surrounding land, and this could affect fugitive
sludge leakage.
Next, there's the bright idea to cap landfills as they
go, so their hot gas attack can't launch freely into the surrounding airspace.
The gas must escape somehow, so vents are placed around the dump to control
these emissions.
That's where the real tech comes in -- the odor control
industry. A product called Neutralene,
provided by Air Care Technology, is emitted from a vaporization pole. I'm
having a hard time telling from their site how it works, but it's one of these
two techniques: their product either pairs with the malodors thereby
camouflaging them into a less-offensive smell, or it slows down the fugitive
offenders by emitting special molecules that attract and combine with the
offending molecules, thereby making them heavier, so they fall to the ground
before leaving the vicinity of the landfill.
There are other alternatives to maintaining a garbage
dump. We could burn it, using the heat produced for power generation. We could
compost it, using the by-product to fertilize farmland. (We could even recycle…).
But even these solutions can’t keep up with demand. We will have landfills for
a long time, if not forever. And as long as we have landfills, we will have the
smell of landfills.
Notes:
March 2019, NJ.com
Related Links:
Limbic Signal, 2018
Limbic Signal, 2017
Limbic Signal, 2017
Limbic Signal, 2017
Limbic Signal, 2017
Limbic Signal, 2017
Limbic Signal, 2016
Limbic Signal, 2016
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