Modular landfill design

Abstract

Transition to solid waste sanitary landfilling is one the most important environmental problems of Turkey due to implementation of European Environmental Regulations. Due to the large number of the municipalities, high project costs and economical insufficiencies, transition to solid waste management system has been delayed. Besides the legislative, environmental or regional handicaps economical criteria seems to be the most deterrent factor. Most of the municipalities have difficulty in financing such projects. Also high interest rates make the financial instruments, like loan, inefficient. Lack of strategic management strategies and legislative regulations, affect the feasibilities of the forthcoming projects. The objective of this study is; to introduce a design-build-operate (DBO) model for sanitary landfill projects by which a competitive market will be constituted for the private sector and to develop a modular design method to lower the initial investment costs by which medium scaled companies can have the opportunity to compete in the market. In this study, costs of an existing sanitary landfill are compared to the proposed method. Costs of modules are calculated for varying operating life of modular landfills and a unit cost of landfilling waste is derived for each module. From comparison of unit costs of present sanitary landfills and modular sanitary landfills, under varying interest rates, according to the capacity of the area of the sanitary landfill, optimum lifespan of the modules has been estimated. Especially for countries having high interest rates, investment costs can be lowered and the amount of interest payment can be minimized by designing modular sanitary landfills with a design-build-operate (DBO) model. This way participation of medium scaled private companies will be achieved and a major step will be taken towards transition to sanitary landfilling.