Landfills pose hazards; long-lived wastes such as plastics, putrescible and organic matter (landfill gas) and location (due to climate change). Increasing pressure to develop land close to or even on closed landfill sites has increased the likelihood of landfill gas impacting on sensitive receptors.
The highlight of the presentation was the ability for landfills to have impacts that extend beyond their boundaries for decades or more was the most powerful point.
Feedback from student attendees was also very positive. They had significant interest in contaminated land, and expressed that had not had much exposure to the variety of disciplines that converge in contaminated land management and investigations. They also expressed surprise at the broad range of expertise, from ecology to engineering, and chemistry to GIS – people with a broad range of skills and backgrounds were present and were accepting and very willing to share their stories with the students.
Communicating the risks posed by landfills was a key point. Another great point was seeing the use of techniques developed for one application (service stations in this case) being modified to identify and communicate risks in another sector (closed landfills).
What was not resolved to date was how NZ is going to deal with closed landfills vulnerable to the effects of climate change was a challenging question with no definite answer. Landfill gas monitoring can be done better, but whether it can be improved (affordably) with the equipment available in NZ currently was also a challenge. Landfill acceptance criteria were questioned.
The question was raised of how to improve the process. We need to keep talking about landfills, and constantly strive for better ways of identifying, communicating and managing the multitude of risks posed by landfills, and indeed any contaminated sites.
Presenter Name | Presenter Company |
Bruce Croucher | Ministry for the Environment |
Gareth Oddy | Engeo |
Olya Abbot / Chloe Wright |
PDP |
17 October 2019 New Zealand Branch report.
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