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COMPARISON OF MICROBIAL POPULATIONS IN A CONVENTIONAL AND BIOREACTING MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE LANDFILLS
Citation:
DavisHoover*, W J., D. J. Slomczynski, D. Feldhake, E. Holder, G. R. Hater, R. B. Green, J F. Martin*, AND R. G. Kavanaugh**. COMPARISON OF MICROBIAL POPULATIONS IN A CONVENTIONAL AND BIOREACTING MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE LANDFILLS. Presented at SWANA Annual Landfill Symposium, Louisville, KY, 6/17-19/2002.
Description:
Landfills are the ultimate reactors for biodegradation as they contain nutrients, bacteria, and various redox conditions which, then, change over time. Enhancement of the landill environment to optimize the rates of biodegradation and to ensure more rapid stabilization of the waste mass and availability of landfill volume needs to be studied and developed. Research has progressed from laboratory to pilot to full scale landfill studies. Waste Management, Inc, and the USEPA/ORD are studying bioremediation in full scale municipal solid waste landfills operated conventionally and as biorectors over time and developing methods to monitor the degradation to ensure optimum operation, as part of a CRADA. The microbial enumeration of harvested wastes landfilled for approximately zero and five-years conventionally in the Outer Loop Landfill in Louisville, KY has been studied. The results of these analyses will indicate of there is a correlation between moisture content of the wastes and depth of the landfill, numbers of total aerobic, total anaerobic, methanogenic, sulfate reducing and denitrifying bacteria. After addition of nitrified leachate to the landfill cell, it will be determined if this retrofit bioreactor demonstrates increased moisture content and numbers of bacteria.