Geologic Considerations in Planning Solid-Waste Disposal Sites in Indiana

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Date
1970
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Geological Survey
Abstract
"City and county officials and many industries throughout Indiana are faced with the immediate need to plan sanitary landfill facilities because open dumps will be illegal after January 1, 1971. The sanitary landfill method of solid-waste disposal, in most places the most economically feasible alternative to open dumping and burning, involves the planned and controlled disposal of waste, which is compacted and covered daily by a compacted layer of soil. The well-run sanitary landfill eliminates many obvious problems associated with open dumps, such as breeding of rodents and insects and spontaneous or accidental burning. Solid waste becomes a part of the geologic environment, however, when it is deposited in the earth materials of a sanitary landfill, and it is then subject to such normal geologic processes as weathering and movement of water through waste. As a result of these natural processes, hidden and irreversible groundwater contamination may result. Furthermore, shortsighted planning with respect to available cover material or general workability of materials can greatly affect the economics of the operation, which in turn can control the quality of the operation. This report has been prepared as an aid to developers of municipal and private solid-waste disposal facilities in Indiana. It points out some of the geologic considerations involved in sanitary landfill site selection, and it emphasizes that general geologic and groundwater information should be obtained at the beginning of the site selection process and that detailed geologic information should be used in making the final site selection."
Description
Keywords
Waste Disposal, Refuse Disposal Act (1969)
Citation
Bleuer, N. K., 1970, Geologic considerations in planning solid-waste disposal sites in Indiana: Indiana Geological Survey Special Report 05, 7 p., 1 fig. doi: 10.5967/m1hj-2x57
DOI
10.5967/m1hj-2x57
Link(s) to data and video for this item
Relation
Rights
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA
Type
Technical Report