HOW DO I WRITE THE OPTION ANALYSIS FOR THIS PROJECT. ALSO SUGGEST POINTS WHERE RELEVANT GRAPHS COULD BE ADDED. THE BARRIER SYSTEMS I AM TESTING ARE EXISTING IN SITU SOIL CONDITIONS, GEOMEMBRANES, GCLS
Introduction:
This project is primarily intended to test your knowledge of designing a landfill barrier system. You
should be able to complete this project on your own, given the knowledge you have gained from the
group design project. A secondary objective of this project is to get you to examine the role that
waste management can play on the life cycle of your landfill design.
Problem Description:
You are required to design a barrier system for a municipal solid waste landfill in an unknown
municipality in Nova Scotia. You have been hired to design the landfill barrier system that is
different than that specified by provincial guidelines (i.e. you can use whatever barrier system you
want) as long as you can show it is “equivalent” in terms of meeting environmental protection (i.e.
keeping groundwater as a drinking water source).
The landfill must be designed to meet the waste requirements for a municipality in Nova Scotia. The
site selection process has identified a potential piece of property to use for the landfill. It is to be of
a length of 720 m and width of 720 m. The maximum height of the landfill above any part of the
existing ground surface is limited to 25 m. The waste can be placed directly on top of a flat surface
and placed at slopes of 3.5H:1V. You also have the option of excavation at slopes of 3H to 1V if you
wish. You can think of the landfill volume shape as a truncated square pyramid when sizing. You
can assume that daily cover will occupy 0.5% of the total volume of the landfill (i.e. waste is 99.5%
of the landfill).
Waste Generation:
 Assume a typical density of municipal solid waste of 600 kg/m3.
 The landfill services a population of 50,000 people in 2024. This population is expected to
increase by 0.75% every year for the foreseeable future.
 The population has a waste generation rate of 800 kg waste/person/yr. You should design your
landfill based on this generation rate which includes no recycling or compost or any other
diversion program. You will have a section in this report that will require you later to do an
analysis on how things like composting, recycling can affect your life cycle of the landfill.
 You must maximize the amount of waste in the landfill before it ceases to accept waste.
 The costs for various portions of the waste management process are provided in Appendix B.
Tipping fees are a source of revenue, not a cost.
Waste Management:
Unlike the group design project, you are required for this project to incorporate some of your waste
management expertise to owner of the landfill. As noted above, you are required to design a landfill
for a waste generation rate of 800 kg waste/person/yr. You are also being asked to provide a brief
options analysis for the owner on how various waste management processes can improve the
lifespan of the landfill. Options that you should consider include recycling, composting and one
other waste management technology. In your analysis of how waste management affect the overall
lifespans you should consider an analysis of the feasibility and cost. For the waste management
technology you choose to incorporate, you should provide a couple of pages of background on how
the technology works, its advantages and disadvantages and how it would work for your landfill.
You should provide an opinion on what should be done in this regard and why. This portion of the
project will be marked separately from the project (worth 10 points of your course mark).
Landfill Site Subsoil Conditions:
A geotechnical site investigation was performed for your site. The locations of the boreholes are
provided in Appendix A, along with the soil encountered in the boreholes. Some testing performed
on the soil encountered is shown on the borehole logs.
Waste and Leachate Characteristics
See Appendix B.
Cover System
You have the option of placing a final cover system that allows an infiltration rate of 0.15 m/yr or a
final cover such that it will allow in an infiltration of 0.001 m/yr. You also have the option of first
using the 0.15 m/yr cover and then the 0.001 m/yr cover. The timing of different cover placement
is up to you if you chose this option.
Modelling Assumption
For simplicity, you can assume that the landfill only starts to produce leachate after it is filled and
covered.
Design Requirements:
 This aquifer is considered a source of drinking water by the neighbouring communities and
must be protected from the landfill and its potential contaminants. Use the “Guidelines for
Canadian Drinking Water” as the objectives for drinking water quality in your assessment:
(Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality - Summary Table - Canada.ca ). Chloride and
dichloromethane are the two “contaminants” that must never be exceeded in the aquifer in
perpetuity. Chloride is chosen because it is considered a conservative contaminant at high
levels in the landfill. Dichloromethane is chosen due to it potential to migrate through a variety
of barrier systems used in practice. You must use POLLUTE to demonstrate the adequacy of
your barrier system to achieve this protection of the groundwater. As a minimum, you should
check that that the existing soil present with a leachate collection system added is not a viable
option (it is the cheapest option). Appendix A provides some of the parameters that can be
considered. Your course notes can also be used as reference for some of these parameters.
 You are allowed propose any barrier system you like. Some examples could be to use the
existing soil present (the cheapest option), add barrier materials or excavate materials. As a
minimum, you should ensure that a leachate collection system is used and any leachate that will
generated will be controlled from offsite migration through the use of berms or excavation.
 There is no correct answer, however, you are required to consider cost implications in your
design choices. Cost refers to any costs associated with materials used in the barrier system,
any excavation costs or berm construction costs. You do not need to account for the cover
system costs or daily cover costs.
 You must consider any service lives of geosynthetic materials used in your design.
 You need to consider any uncertainty in your design parameters and their impact on your
POLLUTE analyses for this project.
Deliverables for Project
The deliverable for this project is a report. Details are provided in Appendix D. You should show
include the following in your report (as a minimum):
 An excel plot which shows the chloride and dichloromethane impacts in the aquifer for the
existing soil conditions and a leachate collection system. Show a sketch of this cross section
which also shows the parameters used in the POLLUTE analysis. Do not show the cover
system.
 Excel plots comparing each of your trialed design chloride and dichloromethane aquifer
impacts to the initial case. Show sketches of each of these cross sections which also shows
the parameters used in the POLLUTE analysis. Do not show the cover system. Each design
presented should be progressively more expensive. Once you achieve a design that satisfies
the design requirements, you do not need to consider any other designs.
 For your final design, show on an excel plot the revenue generated each year until it is full
compared to the costs generated in these years. In the waste management section of your
report, you can modify this plot based on the recommendations you have provided.
 You should demonstrate how long the landfill owner must treat the leachate and monitor
groundwater.
 You should include a section related to waste management and its implications to the cost
of the landfill, as described earlier in this document.
 You should submit your spreadsheets and hand calculations (don’t need to be typed) as
separate documents for your submission.
 Marking for the project is described in Appendix B.
APPENDIX A
Figure A1. Borehole Locations
Figure A2. Borehole 1 information.
Figure A3. Borehole 2 information.
Figure A4. Borehole 3 information.
Figure A5. Borehole 4 information.
Figure A6. Borehole 5 information.
APPENDIX B
Tables 1, and 2 in this appendix provide some estimates for properties of the various materials you
may want to consider in your design. Keep in mind that these are simply estimates to help you
complete your project and don’t necessarily reflect “real life”. If you think you require additional
material, you should contact the instructor. In some cases, there are ranges of values provided. It is
up to you to assess what effect those ranges have on your final design.
Costing for the landfill is an important part of the design process; some approximate costing is
provided in Table 2.
Table 1. Waste and Leachate Properties
Item
Leachate Source Concentrations Chloride: 2000 mg/L
Dichloromethane: 3000 ug/L
Proportion of Contaminant Contained
in the Waste
Chloride: 0.2% of waste mass
Dichloromethane: 0.00015% of waste mass
Half Life of Contaminant in Landfill Chloride: infinite
Dichloromethane: 25 years to 50 years
Half Life of Contaminant in Barrier
System
Chloride: infinite
Dichloromethane: 75 years to 100 years
Table 2. Costing Information
Item
Excavation of silty sand and sandy clay $25/1000 kg
Placement and compaction of soil used in cover system $25/1000 kg
CCL CCL $40/m2/m of thickness
GCL $12/m2
Geotextile, Geonets $5/m2
GM $25/m2
Gravels purchase and placement $30/1000 kg
Leachate Treatment* $5/m3
HDPE Collection Pipe $70/m
Groundwater Monitoring Cost* $20000/yr
Recycling Costs $15/ person/yr
Compost Costs $25/ person/yr
Curbside Collection Costs $15/person/yr
Tipping Fee Revenues $180/1000 kg of waste
*These costs apply only for as long as chloride and dichloromethane landfill leachate
concentrations are greater than drinking water guidelines
APPENDIX C: MARKING
The final report marking is based on the final product. You are free to ask me, at any time, questions
about your design process, your technical calculations, or the final report. The rubric for this project
is based on this simplified “standards-based marking” rubric produced by Stuzman and Race:
The complete rubric for this project can be found in Brightspace, attached to this project folder.
Late policy for report: The project will be marked out of 30. There will be a 1 point deduction for
reports submitted between 1 minute and 24 hours after the deadline. There will be a 3 point
deduction for reports submitted between 24 and 48 hours after the deadline. There will be a 5
point deduction for reports submitted between 48 hours and 72 hours after the deadline. A mark of
0/30 will be provided to reports submitted more than 72 hours after the deadline. It is your
responsibility to manage your time effectively to finish this project on time.
Appendix D
 A technical report is required for this landfill design project. The report format should
generally follow format and style guidelines as required by the Canadian Geotechnical
Journal (Canadian Science Publishing (cdnsciencepub.com)). Ultimately it is up to you to
produce a technical report that provides a professional appearance.
 Suggested headings of the report are:
o Introduction (general introduction with what you have been tasked to do)
o Background (presenting the information provided to you and assumptions made)
o Design Methods (explaining your general design process)
o Design Options Examined (explaining the details of your design process with
reasons why the design examined was adequate or not; you are required to cost out
each design option considered and present it as justification for your selection).
Sketches of the barrier systems you have examined would be useful in this section.
Costing for all options can be included in this section.
o Summary and Conclusions
o References
o The report should also contain an Executive Summary, Table of Contents, List of
Figures, List of Tables, List of Appendices, and Appendices.
 In your Appendices, present a POLLUTE output file results for each design option
considered. For each design considered, present your hand calculations, copies of your
POLLUTE output file (note this is not a graph, it is the text file that gives all of your inputs
and outputs for each model you have run). Be sure to provide sample calculations so that I
can understand what you are doing in your spreadsheet.