Leachability tests of fragmented metallic waste

Abstract

Introduction
It has becoming more and more important to have knowledge about the material
deposited in landfills. During a lifetime of a landfill a lot of pollutants, e.g. heavy metals,
nutrients and organic compounds, are leached out. The EG-directive of landfilling from
1999 suggests limit values for pollutions from landfills. The limit values will be defined
from what is leached out and it is important to characterise the waste for future
landfilling. Work is going on for developing guidelines on how to assess waste material,
e.g. column test, batch test, diffusion test and pH-static test. In many of the tests the
relationship between the leaching liquid and the solid material, i.e. the LIS-ratio, are used
to relate to. These tests are exclusively directed towards the leaching of inorganic
compounds. Hence, there is a lack of knowledge about the leaching of organic substances
like PCB, phenols, PBDE and phthalates. The aims of this study was to study the
leaching out of pollutants from shredded metallic waste with focus on the organic
substances and made a characterisation of the waste in order to classify it into a deposit
class.
Experimental
Two different leachability tests, a stage batch test (EN 12457-3) and an up-flow
percolation test (prEN 14405) have been used. Analyses of different parameters were
performed according to suggests limit values for pollutions from landfills and to the
LAQUA-protocol including sum parameters, heavy metals, organic substances such as
phenols and PCB and an acute toxicity test