01/11/2025
In sanitary landfill design and operation, there are Daily, Intermediate and Long Term needs of soil cover material, thus from 15 to even 50 centimeters of compacted soil.
The use of 15 cm of compacted soil as daily cover continues to be used extensively today. This layer represents the practical minimum depth that can be placed over solid waste to prevent the emergence of adult flies from landfilled solid waste mass.
When implemented properly, this achieves a basic objective of protection of human health and several other beneficial functions as follows:
Fire Control – 15cm of compacted soil reduces the potential for, and movement of, fires within a landfill.
Additional Vector Control – 15cm of compacted soil reduces available breeding sites for mosquitoes and discourages solid waste from serving as an attractant to domestic/feral and wild animals.
Litter Control – 15cm of compacted soil helps to control blowing litter.
Odor Control – 15cm of compacted soil serves as an odor barrier/or filter for odors emanating from solid waste.
Aesthetics – 15cm of compacted soil covering at the end of each day working face, improves the aesthetics for site users and neighbors.
Run-on / Run-off – 15cm of compacted soil serves to reduce the infiltration of storm water run-on into the filled mass of solid waste and helps to increase run-off of precipitation.
Driving Surface – A minimum of 15cm of compacted soil provides a driving surface for the disposal vehicles to unload.
Still there are and not just e few occasions that there is a complete luck of appropriate soil cover material or it has to transport this from a distance.
In either case the operator have to use excavators & trucks and additional personnel and man hours to cover the working face.
In sanitary landfill design and operation, there are Daily, Intermediate and Long Term needs of soil cover material, thus from 15 to even 50 centimeters of c...