Sustainable landfill management
The current European and also Dutch policy concerning landfills is based on isolation of the waste from its environment. This means a focus on the installation and maintenance of soil protecting measures such as impermeable bottom and top liners as well as containment and monitoring systems to ensure groundwater protection around the landfill. This approach is expensive, leads to ongoing aftercare and burdens the next generations with an unsolved environmental problem. The waste remains as contaminated as it was on landfilling and the protection measures cannot be ensured for the long term. Royal Haskoning’s vision suggests that this is not a good example of sustainable policy.
In landfilled waste different kinds of natural biochemical and geochemical processes occur, which reduce the emission of leachate and landfill gas to admissible levels; in technical jargon ‘Natural Attenuation (NA). This natural self-cleaning ability only occurs in the presence of water. This is the main reason why landfilled waste should not be covered by an impermeable liner, which makes the infiltration of rain water impossible. Current legislation is not conducive to encouraging this.
Royal Haskoning developed the SANA-model (Sustainable Aftercare based on Natural Attenuation). It is based upon the natural self-cleaning ability in landfilled waste, which requires that modern landfills should on the contrary not be covered by an impermeable top liner. The SANA-model is a source related approach, which leads to less stringent aftercare or even discharge from aftercare. The SANA-model can be applied to any landfill in any location throughout the world. Application of the SANA-model results in a sustainable emission reduction, an improvement in the quality of the environment and a reduction of costs up to 30%.