1. Leaching of brominated flame retardants from mixed wastes in lysimeters under conditions simulating landfills in developing countries
- Author
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Natsuko Kajiwara, Osamu Hirata, Yukio Noma, Yasushi Matsufuji, Hidetaka Takigami, and Ayako Tachifuji
- Subjects
Environmental Engineering ,Municipal solid waste ,Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis ,Polybrominated Biphenyls ,Environmental pollution ,Solid Waste ,chemistry.chemical_compound ,Polybrominated diphenyl ethers ,Phenols ,Halogenated Diphenyl Ethers ,Environmental Chemistry ,Leachate ,Developing Countries ,Flame Retardants ,Waste management ,Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health ,General Medicine ,General Chemistry ,Pollution ,Hydrocarbons, Brominated ,Refuse Disposal ,Waste Disposal Facilities ,chemistry ,Lysimeter ,Leaching (pedology) ,Brominated flame retardant ,Environmental science ,Tetrabromobisphenol A ,Water Pollutants, Chemical ,Environmental Monitoring - Abstract
In developing countries, wastes are usually not separated before being disposed of in solid-waste landfills, most of which are open dumps without adequate measures to prevent environmental pollution. To understand the leaching behavior of brominated flame retardants (BFRs) from waste consumer products in landfills, we have been conducting a long-term landfill lysimeter experiment since 2006 under conditions designed to mimic three types of landfill conditions in developing countries: aerobic, semi-aerobic, and anaerobic. Pilot-scale lysimeters (60-cm i.d.) were filled with a 400-cm layer of mixed wastes consisting of 35 wt% food, 20 wt% paper, 20 wt% paper pulp, 13 wt% plastic, 10 wt% wood chips, 1 wt% glass, and 1 wt% metals, proportions that are typical of unsorted municipal solid waste in Asian developing countries. In the present study, we determined the concentrations of polybrominated diphenyl ethers, tetrabromobisphenol A, tribromophenols, and hexabromocyclododecanes in leachate samples collected from the lysimeters during the first 3.5 years of the experiment, to evaluate BFR elution behavior in early-stage landfills. Under all three conditions, BFR elution started at the beginning of the experiment. The BFR concentrations in the leachates from the aerobic lysimeter tended to be lower than those from the anaerobic lysimeter, suggesting that the presence of air inside landfills considerably reduces BFR elution to the surrounding environment. During the 3.5-year experiment, BFR outflow from the lysimeters was only 0.001–0.58% of the total BFRs in the loaded waste; that is, most of the BFRs in the waste remained in the lysimeters.
- Published
- 2014