Abstract

Municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills in developing countries are a huge problem and threat to the environment and public health. To do this, within two years, 4 real MSW landfills (in fact, huge poorly equipped dumps) in an industrial Ukrainian city with 1 million populations were studied. These landfills operated for 15-50 years and accumulated 50- 150 thousand tons of MSW for each. Special attention was given to such problems as emission and spreading of greenhouse and toxic gases, seepage into the soil of toxic leachate, and also spreading toxic (heavy) metals which differently pollute air, the soil and underground water. In addition, the so-called “landfill gas” is a 99% greenhouse gas (its composition is a mixture of CO2 and CH4). That is, MSW landfills make a considerable contribution to global warming. Additionally, self-ignition of municipal waste in the MSW landfills and additional very dangerous pollution of the environment by fire gases have been studied. Thus, the purpose of this research is a comprehensive qualitative and quantitative study of all factors of real MSW landfills that can threaten the environment and health of the population.