Land Pollution

land pollution, the deposition of solid or liquid waste materials on land or underground in a manner that can contaminate the soil and groundwater, threaten public health, and cause unsightly conditions and nuisances.

The waste materials that cause land pollution are broadly classified as municipal solid waste (MSW, also called municipal refuse), construction and demolition (C&D) waste or debris, and hazardous waste. MSW includes nonhazardous garbage, rubbish, and trash from homes, institutions (e.g., schools), commercial establishments, and industrial facilities. Garbage contains moist and decomposable (biodegradable) food wastes (e.g., meat and vegetable scraps); rubbish comprises mostly dry materials such as paper, glass, textiles, and plastic objects; and trash includes bulky waste materials and objects that are not collected routinely for disposal (e.g., discarded mattresses, appliances, pieces of furniture). C&D waste (or debris) includes wood and metal objects, wallboard, concrete rubble, asphalt, and other inert materials produced when structures are built, renovated, or demolished. Hazardous wastes include harmful and dangerous substances generated primarily as liquids but also as solids, sludges, or gases by various chemical manufacturing companies, petroleum refineries, paper mills, smelters, machine shops, dry cleaners, automobile repair shops, and many other industries or commercial facilities. In addition to improper disposal of MSW, C&D waste, and hazardous waste, contaminated effluent from subsurface sewage disposal (e.g., from septic tanks) can also be a cause of land pollution.

The permeability of soil formations underlying a waste-disposal site is of great importance with regard to land pollution. The greater the permeability, the greater the risks from land pollution.Soil consists of a mixture of unconsolidated mineral and rock fragments (gravel, sand, silt, and clay) formed from natural weathering processes. Gravel and sand formations are porous and permeable, allowing the free flow of water through the pores or spaces between the particles. Silt is much less permeable than sand or gravel, because of its small particle and pore sizes, while clay is virtually impermeable to the flow of water, because of its platelike shape and molecular forces.

Until the mid-20th century, solid wastes were generally collected and placed on top of the ground in uncontrolled “open dumps,” which often became breeding grounds for rats, mosquitoes, flies, and other disease carriers and were sources of unpleasant odours, windblown debris, and other nuisances. Dumps can contaminate groundwater as well as pollute nearby streams and lakes. A highly contaminated liquid called leachate is generated from decomposition of garbage and precipitation that infiltrates and percolates downward through the volume of waste material. When leachate reaches and mixes with groundwater or seeps into nearby bodies of surface water, public health and environmental quality are jeopardized. Methane, a poisonous and explosive gas that easily flows through soil, is an eventual by-product of the anaerobic (in the absence of oxygen) decomposition of putrescible solid waste material. Open dumping of solid waste is no longer allowed in many countries. Nevertheless, leachate and methane from old dumps continue to cause land pollution problems in some areas.

A modern technique for land disposal of solid waste involves construction and daily operation and control of so-called sanitary landfills. Sanitary landfills are not dumps; they are carefully planned and engineered facilities designed to control leachate and methane and minimize the risk of land pollution from solid-waste disposal. Sanitary landfill sites are carefully selected and prepared with impermeable bottom liners to collect leachate and prevent contamination of groundwater. Bottom liners typically consist of flexible plastic membranes and a layer of compacted clay. The waste material—MSW and C&D debris—is spread out, compacted with heavy machinery, and covered each day with a layer of compacted soil. Leachate is collected in a network of perforated pipes at the bottom of the landfill and pumped to an on-site treatment plant or nearby public sewerage system. Methane is also collected in the landfill and safely vented to the atmosphere or recovered for use as a fuel known as biogas, or landfill gas. Groundwater-monitoring wells must be placed around the landfill and sampled periodically to ensure proper landfill operation. Completed landfills are capped with a layer of clay or an impermeable membrane to prevent water from entering. A layer of topsoil and various forms of vegetation are placed as a final cover. Completed landfills are often used as public parks or playgrounds.

Hazardous waste differs from MSW and C&D debris in both form and behaviour. Its disposal requires special attention because it can cause serious illnesses or injuries and can pose immediate and significant threats to environmental quality. The main characteristics of hazardous waste include toxicity, reactivity, ignitability, and corrosivity. In addition, waste products that may be infectious or are radioactive are also classified as hazardous waste. Although land disposal of hazardous waste is not always the best option, solid or containerized hazardous wastes can be disposed of by burial in “secure landfills,” while liquid hazardous waste can be disposed of underground in deep-well injection systems if the geologic conditions are suitable. Some hazardous wastes such as dioxins, PCBs, cyanides, halogenated organics, and strong acids are banned from land disposal in the United States, unless they are first treated or stabilized or meet certain concentration limits. Secure landfills must have at least 3 metres (10 feet) of soil between the bottom of the landfill and underlying bedrock or groundwater table (twice that required for municipal solid-waste landfills), a final impermeable cover when completed, and a double impervious bottom liner for increased safety. Underground injection wells (into which liquid waste is pumped under high pressure) must deposit the liquid in a permeable layer of rock that is sandwiched between impervious layers of rock or clay. The wells must also be encased and sealed in three concentric pipes and be at least 400 metres (0.25 mile) from any drinking-water supplies for added safety.

Before modern techniques for disposing of hazardous wastes were legislated and put into practice, the wastes were generally disposed of or stored in surface piles, lagoons, ponds, or unlined landfills. Thousands of those waste sites still exist, now old and abandoned. Also, the illegal but frequent practice of “midnight dumping” of hazardous wastes, as well as accidental spills, has contaminated thousands of industrial land parcels and continues to pose serious threats to public health and environmental quality. Efforts to remediate or clean up such sites will continue for years to come. In 1980 the United States Congress created the Superfund program and authorized billions of dollars toward site remediation; today there are still about 1,300 sites on the Superfund list requiring remediation. The first listed Superfund site—Love Canal, located in Niagara Falls, N.Y.—was not removed from the list until 2004.

See also solid-waste management, hazardous-waste management.