Municipal solid waste landfill settlement: Postclosure perspectives

The composition of waste, both in the municipal solid waste (MSW) and hazardous waste landfills, is heterogeneous. According to the Code of Federal Regulations 257.2 a MSW landfill may receive household waste and any other type of Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Subtitle D waste, such as, commercial solid waste, nonhazardous sludge, and industrial solid waste. Data regarding the composition of MSW, collected from actual landfills are presented by Bouazza et al. (1996) and Sharma (2000). The very heterogeneous nature of MSW makes the estimation and prediction of landfill settlement difficult. Increasing pressure of new development on available real estate is leading to a worldwide trend to construct over former landfill sites. This, in turn, is making it imperative to obtain reasonably accurate predictions of landfill settlements, as design inputs for structures proposed at the site.