Landfill as a Resource

Over the past decade or so, the emphasis in Europe and other developed countries has moved from waste to resource management. Re‐usable or recyclable materials are increasingly recovered from the waste stream and organic materials treated prior to landfill; this has resulted in a fundamental change in the nature of the material going to a modern landfill. However, historic landfills remain a potential resource in terms of both materials recovery and the generation of biogas. This chapter assesses the potential benefits of this resource and how it might be exploited, in addition to discussing the engineered controls likely to be needed to prevent pollution of the environment through leakage of leachate into groundwater or the escape of residual biogas from a new landfill containing a more highly processed residual waste.