Leaching of brominated flame retardants from mixed wastes in lysimeters under conditions simulating landfills in developing countries

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.