Rain, that's nothing unusual around here. All the more surprising that nobody ever thought of protecting landfills from it. Precipitation seeps into the landfill and dissolves pollutants. These may then seep into the ground-water. No pleasant scenario. That's why nowadays landfills have to be provided with an effective sealing of substructures and surface seal. And that is exactly what was required for the company-owned landfill of a big German industrial concern. HPC had been working with the customer for many years. They knew us and put their trust in us, as they did in this case again.

The old landfill
For 20 years toxic wastes from production had been stored in the landfill. A total of 600,000 m³ had been piling up. The landfill no longer met today's technological standards, of course. In cooperation with the customer we were looking for a way to keep the landfill in operation for the next 25 years. The loosely stored waste almost completely filled the landfill's capacity. And yet skilful planning is sometimes very effective. HPC was able to make room for another 400,000 m³.

Difficult conditions
The customer made it a condition that the landfill had to be kept in operation during rebuilding, which we were able to ensure. We also met the condition on the part of the authorities that the landfill was to be almost completely boxed in.

The perfect model: a funnel
We planned a conical sealing of the substructures in this case for only one seepage water shaft will do for that. This helps save costs. The responsible authorities had no objections to the plan and gave their consent.

Implementation planning, invitation to tender,
placing and site management.
HPC implemented the project being responsible for the basic investigations, object attendance and documentation. First we finished the sealing of the substructures. Then we moved the landfill content onto the substructures seal, shaped it into a hill and provided the top with a surface seal. In the part where waste continued to be deposited we installed a temporary intermediate seal. The seepage water from the operational section is collected by a surface drainage and pumped into the related sewage treatment plant.

In order to minimize the amount of seepage water we drafted an operational concept: by means of temporary sealing and surface water collecting facilities, the part of the landfill where waste will still be deposited in future is largely protected from precipitation, thus minimizing the cost for seepage water treatment. The result was a landfill up to the latest technological standards, well prepared to be kept in operation for many years to come.