Abstract
Growing population, industrialization and
infrastructure development have resulted in enormous waste
generation over the past decades. The disposal of vast amounts of
waste remains a major challenge. However, in the globalized world
recycling has become a main option for managing wastes while in
other parts of the globe, landfilling is done due to waste handling
difficulties. South Africa is one of many countries where landfilling
activities is high, as roughly 75% of daily generated solid waste is
disposed in landfills. This includes massive amounts of
construction and demolition wastes (CDW) from reconstruction
and development activities. South Africa depends on landfilling as
a system of waste management which in the foreseeable future
would linger till feasible recycling options are initiated. As such,
the generation and seepage of leachate into soil, water reserves is
probable in such dump sites due to exposure of the waste bodies to
rain and run-offs. A bespoke device was used in the study to
investigate the impacts of disposing CDW in open dumps paying
mind to an unlined site relying on the geology of the area as worst
case scenario. To generate leachate, the device was coupled with
CDW in a bottom chamber and de-ionized water percolated the
system from a reservoir. Arsenic, Copper and Chromium from the
generated leachate effluent were analyzed by full spectral method
and were compared to the South African standard of drinking
water. Targeted ions were found to decrease over the testing
period and it was however, clear that improper disposal of CDW
could have consequential impacts on human and environmental
health.