Management Model of Municipal Solid Waste Landfill Bioreactor

Major environmental concerns of municipal landfills revolve around quantity and quality of leachate, gas generation, and decomposition processes occurring therein. Minimizing the time period for maximum biodegradation to reduce leachate and gas emissions after landfill closure, ease the requirement of leachate treatment, and reclamation of landfill site is the most sought after managers proposition. In this context, several enhancement techniques are being implemented to increase the biological activity in the landfills. As early as 1970, researchers started exploring the potential of applying leachate recirculation in landfills to enhance the stabilization of waste and generation of landfill gas. As compared to many developed countries, the concept of bioreactor landfills is still relatively very new to India. This paper reviews the benefits of bioreactor landfill operation techniques with the conventional landfill techniques from past and ongoing field trials and culminates with the need for the research on the promising technology in India.