Welcome.

This site has been set up by waste management experts for the exchange of information about leachate irrigation, and related leachate management, treatment, and disposal techniques.

Please do enter your own irrigation site information, and you will be contacted for verification.
 

Final Draft November 2006

Important:
Most Leachate Processes described on this web site are NOT listed in the processes which will become part of the UK
BAT process guidance.
If you have views on this we welcome your comments.

“We believe that there is a continuing role for these processes in the UK, and throughout Europe.”

News

Agency in Defra talks over leachate irrigation (13 January 2006)

The Environment Agency is in talks with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs over what happens next year, when leachate irrigation may come under the ban on landfill sites accepting waste in liquid form. (Reported in Resource Management & recovery 13 January 2006)

The Environment Agency confirmed this week that from October 30 2007, the Landfill Regulations (implementing the Landfill Directive in the UK) will stop landfill sites from accepting waste in liquid form.

A statement from the Agency said that a number of landfill operators currently manage their landfill leachate (waste liquids produced from the decomposition of waste in landfills) by controlled irrigation onto grassland or onto willow crops (short rotational coppice systems).

The Agency stated: "We believe leachate irrigation, such as this, may be affected by the ban on October 30th 2007. However, it is a long-standing practice, which may offer certain environmental benefits provided the operation is properly managed. The Environment Agency is keen to ensure that regulatory controls on waste are proportionate to the risk waste poses to the environment. Accordingly we have raised the issue of such leachate irrigation with government."

The Agency added that operators of landfills currently undertaking this activity in compliance with existing controls need not take any immediate action in anticipation of the October 2007 deadline and said further advice for industry would be issued in coming months.

Research on the Effects of Landfill Leachate on Biomass Crops (December 2005)

ADAS have undertaken a series of studies on the use of biomass crops on landfill sites for leachate treatment. Their results show crop growth similar to that in agricultural soils with the plants successfully utilising nutrients from the leachate, and not affected by the potentially harmful elements of the leachate.

See www.adas.co.uk/media_files/case_studies/Landfill%20leachate.pdf , or for more details and the final report contact tom.brassington@adas.co.uk (January 2006)