Characterisation of toxic gaseous emissions from industrial solid waste landfills

International audienceIn France, Hazardous Industrial Waste, once stabilized, are buried in specific landfills. As for all polluting activities, these facilities must report to the EPER Register their toxic gaseous emissions, expressed in mass per year, as soon as they exceed threshold limit values. Campaigns were conducted on two different hazardous waste landfills in order to establish if these facilities needed to report to EPER register. Global fluxes of gaseous components were measured by means of an FID (hydrocarbons) and a PID (halocarbons, aromatics and some non-organic compounds). Specific concentrations of aromatic (BTEX) and chlorinated hydrocarbons were also measured. Gaseous emissions were generally very low. Emissions were only detected for young and medium-aged layers, between 1 day and 3 months old. Due to these low emissions, and to the small surfaces involved, the two landfills do not fall under the EPER emission Register