ENCI 481

Module 7 –Solid Waste Management & Design

Fall 2024

Schulich School of Engineering

Department of Civil Engineering
In the news…

Solid Waste Management

Land Use & Land Pollution

Water Treatment Wastewater Treatment

Human Health

Water Quality
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A note on this Module

• For Fall 2024 – this module has been significantly

reduced due to time constraints, and will cover the
high level topics in Solid Waste Management.

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Introduction to Solid Waste Management

• MSW refers to recyclables and compostable

materials, as well as garbage from homes,
businesses, institutions, and construction and
demolition sites

• MSW collection, diversion (recycling and

composting) and disposal operations are the
responsibility of municipal governments, while the
provinces and territories are responsible for
approvals, licensing and monitoring of operations.

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Other Waste

• Solid wastes are dealt with in different ways

depending on the source of the waste and the
material involved.
• Wastes produced from primary production—
agriculture, forestry, fisheries, mining and
quarrying—are normally managed by these
industries.
• Industrial waste from production activities (e.g…)
may be managed on-site or through contracts with
private waste firms.

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Sources of non-hazardous waste

• Residential: single family, multi-family, high-rise and

low-rise residences.
• Construction, renovation and demolition: concrete,
brick, painted wood, rubble, drywall, metal,
cardboard, doors, windows and wiring.
• Industrial, commercial and institutional: Shopping
centres, restaurants and offices, institutional such as
schools, hospitals and government facilities.

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Management of SW

• Diversion
• Composting
• Landfills
• Incineration
• Export

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Factors that affect waste management?

• Type of waste
• Type and capacity of waste facility
• Government Policies
• Political & Social Issues
• Economy

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Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

• Preventing the initial generation of waste is the first

step to minimizing the amount of waste going to
disposal.

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Landfills

- Most common disposal method in Canada

- Landfill sites should take into account…

- IN CLASS
o Consideration for landfill design
o Identify concerns/issues in landfill design process

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Landfill Design

• Landfill technology has evolved over the last 50

years.
• Technically advanced facilities
• Short and long-term management considered at the
design stage.

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Landfill Design

• Multidisciplinary team to:

• Conceptual design proposals
• Environmental assessment (recall Module 7)
• Environmental monitoring
• Risk Assessment (recall Module 6)
• Absolute standards, specs & guidelines
• Provincial regulations

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Considerations for design

• Liner and natural barriers

• Leachate collection systems
• Waste characteristics
• Final cap design, including water balance
• Gas collection and management

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Liner Materials

• Geosynthetic clay liners:

• thin manufactured hydraulic barriers, 5-10 mm
• layer of bentonite supported by geotextiles
• and/or plastic sheet
• natural sodium bentonite is typically used
• controlled mass/unit area -> low permeability
• swelling behavior
• interaction with leachate, cation exchange

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Landfill Decomposition

• Wastes undergo a series of chemical and biological

reactions
• Govern leachate and gas production
• Decomposition process
• Early stage:
• Food waste, yard waste, paper decomposes
• Oxygen consumed
• Carbon dioxide and organic acids are produced – pH of
leachate is decreased

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Landfill Decomposition

• Increase in BOD and COD in early stages (a.k.a.

increase in leachate’s oxygen demand)
• After all oxygen is consumed an anaerobic
environment develops, and microbes convert BOD
organic acids to methane gas.
• Leachate can become less concentrated (as part of
the constituents are being converted to gas, and
leachable constituents of waste are reduced).

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Landfill Decomposition

• Methane production
• Considered in landfill design
• Electricity generation
• Potential drawbacks: health concerns, safety,
odour, greenhouse gas (if release to atmosphere)
• Time can vary (1 – 2 years +)
• May not occur

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Leachate
• Water that contacts the waste and becomes
contaminated
• Landfill leachate: “Percolation of rainwater through
solid waste leaches out soluble salts and
biodegradable organic products to form a foul-
smelling, gray leachate”
• Complex liquid which changes in characteristics
• Acetic phase of young leachate
• Methanogenic phase of older leachate

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Leachate Collection System (LCS)

• As demonstrated earlier, movement through barriers

depends on hydraulic conductivity of barrier and
hydraulic gradient
• LCS can lower height of leachate mounding; reduce
leachate head acting on liner; prevent leachate
breakout at surface, and remove contaminant for
treatment.
• Various methods used to estimate the height of
mounding, impact on design of pipes, spacing
requirements etc.

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Landfill Siting

• Located where risks to the environment and society

are low:
• So that even in case of poor design, construction and
operation – the risk is minimized
• GIS is common tool for evaluating potential sites

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Landfill Siting

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Composting

• Biological decomposition and stabilization of organic

substrates under conditions which allow
development of thermophilic temperatures as a
result of biologically produced heat.
• Usually applies to aerobic systems, however
anaerobic composting systems are marketed
• Anaerobic systems usually require external heating
sources and hence do not fit definition perfectly

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Composting
• Objectives:
• Stabilization of putrescible organic compounds
• Pathogen destruction
• Volume reduction
• Production of a product with some value
• Applications of composting:
• Biological solids from wastewater treatment
• Manures
• Leaf and yard wastes
• Household food wastes
• Municipal solid waste

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Composting Design

• Configuration (reactor and non-reactor)

• Site Location
• Intended Use
• Composition Waste

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Composting

• Aerobic & Anaerobic process

• Phases:
• How does temperature of compost change over time?
• Initial Mesophilic
• Thermophilic
• Secondary Mesophilic

• Goal is to produce what?

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Compost Design

• Recall that the objectives are:

• Stabilization of putrescible organic compounds
• Pathogen destruction
• Volume reduction
• Production of a product with some value

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Incineration

• Combustion or mass-burn
• Modular
• Refuse-derived fuel (RDF)
• Co-incineration
• Hazardous waste
• Cement kilns

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Next Module:

Module 8 – Sustainable
Design
The following slides are
not included in
assessment for ENCI 481
Fall 2024
Closed Cell Landfill
Design
Closed Cell – with final cover
 A Closed Landfill Cell

• A wasted space?
• What are the Reuse options:
• Convert to a Solar park
• Challenge: solar panels and hail?
• Extract landfill biogas (possible, but ideally the landfill cell
should be designed for this purpose)
• Wind-mills (possible in windy sites such as the SpyHill
landfill in NW Calgary)
• Challenge: Landfill waste cells settle over time
(why? So, what should be done?
 Landfill Cell Design Philosophy

• Eliminate problems with waste Dumps and the large

volume of waste
• Waste dump problems/Solutions
• Aesthetics/smell/Animal problems (solution: cover the
waste, “hide” the landfill cell)
• Instability (solution: geotechnical engineering to prevent
slope stability issues such as keeping slopes low)
• Groundwater contamination – engineered liner systems
to prevent leachate production and escape
• Keep the “Landfill Footprint” as small as possible
• “Smaller the landfill cell, smaller the problem”
Landfill Cell Planning/Design:

• The first step in planning is

• to find the size (volume/area) of the Landfill Cell required
to deposit waste over a given period of time.
• This is necessary to find whether the available space
is sufficient for landfill disposal of waste
Landfill cell construction - pictorial view
Landfill cell construction - pictorial view
Landfill Design

• Recall that landfill design is based on:

• Liner and natural barriers
• Leachate collection system
• Waste characteristics
• Final cap design, including water balance
• Gas collection and management

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Liner Materials

• Natural clays
• low hydraulic conductivity materials
• e.g. clays, silty clays and clayey silts
• suitable material of low permeability may be
found on site
• thick mineral layer should form the lower
component of a composite liner and should be
constructed in a series of compacted lifts no
thicker than 250mm when compacted.

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Liners

• Parameters that influence the hydraulic

conductivity and are of concern in the design
include:
• clay content;
• particle size distribution;
• degree of compaction (density);
• compaction method; and
• moisture content.

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Liner materials
Liner materials
Flow Modelling for Liners
• Based on Darcy’s law:
• v = ki
• Q = vA
• Q = kiA
• Where:
• k = hydraulic conductivity of the clay
• I = hydraulic gradient, defined as the change in total head
over a given distance
• Total head is the sum of pressure head, hp and position
head, z.
• A = cross-sectional area
• Total head is the sum of pressure head (h) and position
head (z)
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Compost

• Different configurations
• Reactor and non-reactor (e.g. windrow) systems
• E.g. …?
• Large pile vs. small pile – what are the differences?
• Calculations are similar to those in sludge treatment
• Compost is a mixture of organic and inorganic solids:

Xs = Xv + Xnv

• Xs=total solids
• Xnv=non-volatile solids (fixed solids)
• Xv=volatile solids 51
Example 1: Determine the area requirement for a Landfill Cell
on a yearly basis for a municipality with an average population
of 820,000 people with a Unit Waste Factor of 0.6
tonnes/capita/year.

Assume the following:

• The landfill cell should take one years’ waste.
• The average height of the landfill cell is 10 m.
• The compacted density of solid waste is 600 kg/m3 (or 0.6
tonnes/m3)
• Assume three layers of waste of equal thickness (waste lift
thickness)
• Daily cover is 0.15 m of soil, intermediate cover is 0.5 m (soil)
and final cover is 1.0 m (compacted soil).
• Keep 1 m clearance between the water table and the bottom
of the landfill cell.
Daily Cells - pictorial view
Solution:

Step 1) Find volume of waste landfilled in one year

Mass of waste landfilled in one year= 820,000 x 0.6 tonnes

= 492,000 tonnes
Volume of waste = Mass/density = (492,000 tonnes/0.6 tonnes/m3) m3 = 820,000 m3

Step 2) find the average thickness of waste

Average thickness of waste = 10 – (1.0 + 2*0.5 + 3*0.15) = 7.55 m

Fin al C over (1.0 m )

In term ed iate C over (0.5 m )

7.55/3 m
L an d fill L ift

D aily C over (0.15 m )

1.o m
Solution (Cont.):

Step 3) Find the required area for the landfill

Required area of the landfill cell = Volume/thickness =

(820,000/7.55) m2 = 10.86 ha

Add 10% for dead space = 1.086 ha

Total area required (or landfill cell footprint) = 11.95 ha

per year

For 25 year landfill; area required is about 300 ha (about

740 acres)
 Methods to decrease the space requirement
• Increase the design height (thickness) of the Landfill
Cell (say 20 m height instead of 10 m)
• Increase the waste compaction density (500 to 800
kg/m3 possible)
• Increase the cell lift height/thickness (usually the
advantage may be minimal because this will impact
the compaction density; higher the lift thickness,
lower will be the density)
• Use alternate cover material (plastic cover that is
removable daily)
Example 2: Determine the Soil Requirements for the landfill in
Example 1 (cell area = 10.86 ha)

Solution:
Step 1) Calculate the volume of daily soil requirement
Daily Cover soil thickness = 0.15 m

Soil required to cover top of “daily cells”= 10.86 x 104 x 0.15 m3

Assume, 150% more soil is needed to cover the sides of each “daily cell” (because of
the 3:1 slopes on all sides)
Then, soil to cover the sides of “daily cells”= 1.5 (10.86 x 104 x 0.15) m3

Total, volume soil to cover the “daily cells” in each lift =

10.86 x 104 x 0.15 m3 + 1.5 (10.86 x 104 x 0.15) m3
= 2.5 (10.86 x 104 x 0.15) m3

Since there are 3 levels of cells (or lifts);

Total Volume of soil for daily cover = 3 x (10.86 x 104 x 0.15) x 2.5 m3 =
122,175 m3
Solution (Cont.):

Step 2) Calculate the intermediate cover soil requirement:

Thickness of intermediate cover soil = 0.5 m

Volume = plan area of landfill cell x thickness.
Note: Intermediate Cover not applied on sides.

Since there are two intermediate covers,

Volume of soil for intermediate cover= 2 x (10.86 x 104 x 0.5) m3 =
108,600 m3
Solution (Cont.):

Step 3) Calculate the final and total cover soil requirement:

Final cover is a soil cover of 1.0 m.

Then, the volume of soil for the final cover = 10.86 x 104 x 1.0 m3 =
108,600 m3

Total cover soil requirement = 122,175 + 108,600 + 108,600 =

339,375 m3

Note: This should be found from the site; to minimize cost

Compost

• A fraction of the organic solids are biologically

available:
• Xv = XBV+XNBV
• XV = volatile solids
• XBV = biologically available
• XNBV = non biologically available

• Total volume of compost: VT=Vs+Vvoid

• Vvoids=Vw+VA (void space is occupied by water, air)

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Recall…

TS

DS MC

Ash VS

BVS NBVS

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Compost – Important Equations

• Notes:
• TS and DS are a function of what?
DS = TS (1-MC) as % of TS
• DS and VS (with Ash content, or NV))
VS = DS (1 - Ash) as % of DS

• BVS and VS
(B: the biodegradability factor or the biodegradable
fraction)
BVS=VS x B
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Compost – Important Equations

• biodegradable fraction (B) for aerobic digestion

𝐵 = 0.85 ±0.084 − 0.01(±0.0027)𝐿
L = lignin content (as % volatile solids)

• biodegradable fraction (B) for anaerobic digestion

𝐵 = 0.83 − 0.028 𝐿

• Then:
BVS = TS (1-MC)(1 - Ash) B
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Compost – Other Important Equations

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