RECOMMENDATION AND PROTECTION MEASURES

Voluminous generation of leachate could be minimized by restricting water fl ow into the landfi ll through surface water diversion and reducing water accumulation in these landfi ll sites by frequent pumping and also by laying soil cover on a day to day basis. A low-permeability cover aids in restricting water infi ltration into the landfi ll area. For suitable management of leachate, effective containment of leachate with improved collection facilities is necessary.

1. Leachate produced during the landfi ll process has to be meticulously collected and treated with advanced microbial technologies as activated sludge process, sequential batch reactor, anaerobic baffl ed reactors, moving bed biofi lm reactor, anaerobic fi lters, algal bioreactors and other biofi lm-based technologies. This also helps in checking the deterioration of groundwater resources from these MSW landfi ll sites.
2. The bacterial assemblages and algal communities found in the present study have to be further explored, and the potential for leachate treatment and bioenergy generation has to be tested by batch operations for further applications.
3. As a part of upstream processing, it is equally important to ensure that only non-recyclable and inert waste is disposed of, and no hazardous and bio-medical waste is entertained in landfi lls. Thus, adequate waste segregation and utilization with bioprocesses like anaerobic digestion/composting for organic waste treatment and management and incineration for biomedical waste can be followed by land fi lling. Furthermore, adequate liners or barriers have to be installed in these landfi ll sites with proper capping for effective containment of the landfi ll wastes.
3. Lastly, to infer high concentrations of organics, inorganic ions, trace metals and bacterial population coupled with towering LPI values necessitates immediate actions for leachate treatment and disposal and thus emphasizes on the requirement of continuous monitoring and surveillance strategy. The characterized leachate samples in the study that were observed to have high organic strength would require a hybrid dual-phase treatment process with initial anaerobic (phase I) and fi nal aerobic (phase II) for complete removal of pollutants and other organic matter.