Feb
7
2022
Houston Waste Management
Author: firmvoicHouston Dumpster Rentals
Houston residents use dumpster rentals to discard their junk in bulk. This is good waste management, but the question is where does all this waste go? To the landfill
Access to the landfill should be facilitated by a well-developed road. It is advisable to have a two-lane road with a minimum width of 7.5 m. Drainage must be careful to avoid the risk of flooding during rainy periods.
This is an important point given the frequent dumpster rental traffic. In the event that the traffic is between 25 to 50 trips per day, a compacted and neat dirt road may be suitable. For higher traffic, an asphalt or concrete pavement is warranted.
A fence surrounding the site secures the facilities and controls access. Two entrances, one main and the other emergency, must be provided on the site, preferably opposite one another. The main entrance is located upstream of the prevailing winds reaching the landfill in order to limit the inconvenience related to the smells of fresh waste.
A checkpoint must regulate the circulation of dumpsters there and a weighing station must assess waste dumping. It is a wooden, steel or concrete platform mounted on a structure associated with a scale allowing trucks of 30 to 60 tonnes to be weighed, before and after spills.
Other buildings are also being built on the site to accommodate administrative services (offices, laboratories, canteens, etc.) and technical services (maintenance and depots for site equipment, leachate and gas treatment plant, etc).
A ring ditch of the landfill is made in order to collect all the rainwater that has fallen outside the developed area to accommodate the waste and route it to the natural hydrographic network after minor treatment to remove the pollutants linked to the operation. site (oils, organic matter, suspended matter, etc.). In this sense, it is necessary to provide a cleaning station for the wheels of vehicles leaving the site.
Finally, we also emphasize the need to provide piezometric wells surrounding the site in order to control the level and quality of the water in the aquifers in the basement of the landfill. Eventually, in order to confirm the absence of impact of the landfill on the environment, air quality and surface water analysis stations will be set up near the site, both downstream and upstream.
The development of a landfill
The Houston facilities that have been described are essential due to their reassuring nature aimed at isolating the waste, and the dumpster flows it generates, from their environment. However, the climate in Texas, and more particularly the water balance, is an important parameter which conditions the biological activity of a landfill and consequently the means to be implemented in order to limit the impact on the environment.
Consequently, the methodology for producing the basic waterproofing and the cover of the landfill can be reduced when the biological activity which develops within the waste is negligible throughout the year: absence of production of leachate and emissions of polluting gases at concentrations below the strictest international standards for public health.
In order to enable residents and businesses to bring waste to Houston landfills, two categories of landfills can, with little means, satisfy these restrictive conditions.
The first category, of the fossilized dry landfill type, is possible in areas with a negative water balance (evapotranspiration is greater than rainfall). Rainwater cannot penetrate deeply. The landfill therefore does not have enough water to develop biological activity. The second category, of the intermediate crustal discharge type, is possible when the calculated balance is positive but the precipitation is occasional and heavy.
Best Waste Management
With certain precautions, it is possible to reduce the production of leachate so as to no longer have a negative impact on the quality of the water table. In both cases, the purpose of the cover developments will be to limit, during storms, percolation and hypodermic flows through the waste.
Explicitly, the climatic conditions in Houston and Texas must induce a significant loss of moisture in the waste and in situ pilot tests must demonstrate that the facilities and the burial method envisaged do not induce any biological activity, or at most negligible.