What is leachate?

A pile of metal scrap

Leachate is formed when water enters a landfill and leaches the waste. The water carries the leached pollutants through the landfill. Depending on what has been stored at the landfill, the composition of the leachate varies and can contaminate recipients with many different types of pollutants.

The amount of leachate produced can depend on several different things.

Some landfills are in contact with surface or groundwater, which dilutes the leachate. The different phases of a landfill also play a major role in how much leachate is formed and the nature of the waste deposited.

A certain amount of water in the landfill is desirable for the microorganisms so that the breakdown of the waste will function optimally. It is important to find out how much water needs to be added because you don't want to have too much leachate that has to undergo costly treatment.

Sending a leachate directly to the municipal treatment plants can lead to a deterioration in the degree of purification of the water. In the event of heavy rainfall, there will be large amounts of leachate which can lead to overloading of the treatment plant.

If it is also highly contaminated, it further dilutes the reduced degree of purification. If the leachate contains large amounts of heavy metals, it is not possible to reuse the sludge as fertiliser.

As the chemical composition differs between leachate and wastewater, it is difficult to find an optimal treatment measure for both.

It is therefore desirable that the leachate instead is purified locally as it becomes easier to adapt the purification method to the composition of the leachate, which also varies according to the age of the landfill.

The need for wastewater and leachate management is adamant and a prerequisite for sustainable metal recycling.

At Clearwell we have the necessary methods available for managing high levels of heavy metals in leachate, with our unique system of filters we can lower the presence of metal with more than 98%.

How have you coped with your challenge?

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