University Of Florida Center To Head Up New, Experimental Landfill

August 26, 1998

GAINESVILLE — No one wants to live near a landfill.

But Florida officials agree the state likely will need more of the unsightly and potentially polluting facilities as its population soars and residents continue to throw out more and more garbage each year.

Help may be on the way. Government officials and University of Florida engineers soon will have the chance to test a radically redesigned landfill that has the potential to store much more garbage than other landfills its size — and possibly turn some of it into useful material.

The UF College of Engineering-based Florida Center for Solid and Hazardous Waste Management expects construction workers to break ground on the $3.2 million “Bioreactor Landfill Demonstration Project” within a year. The goal is to determine whether the landfill, the first of its type in Florida, can accept more garbage than current landfills without significantly increasing construction and maintenance costs. Officials also think the landfill may be able to produce a peat-like soil useful for sod production or road beautification work.

“It’s a blank page right now,” said Fletcher Herrald, a senior management analyst for the Bureau of Solid and Hazardous Waste at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). “We’re hoping the university system will fill some of the blanks.”

To guard against groundwater contamination, modern landfills route rainwater away garbage and treat water that seeps into it, said John Schert, director of the Center for Solid and Hazardous Waste Management. A double plastic or plastic-and-clay lining, meanwhile, prevents seepage into the ground, he said.

While these steps reduce or eliminate contamination, they also prevent the garbage from decaying because it remains relatively dry, Schert said. The results can be dramatic: In some landfills, it’s possible to read newspapers dating back to the 1920s, he said.

The bioreactor also will have a double lining. But pumps normally used to remove water from the bottom of the landfill instead will pump the water back into the waste. Recirculation equipment, meanwhile, will ensure all the waste remains moist.

The goal is to maintain an environment that allows bacteria to break down organic matter such as food or paper, Schert said.

“Traditional landfills are permanent storage facilities, but this is a treatment facility,” he said. “It’s a whole different mind-set.”

Schert said he knows of no other similar site in the nation as large as the planned bioreactor, expected to cover about seven acres at a landfill site operated by The New River Solid Waste Association 35 miles north of Gainesville near Raiford.

However, he said, data from smaller test sites and European bioreactor landfills shows the bacteria can break down and eliminate as much as a third of the garbage.

“The benefit is that ultimately you can put between 10 and 30 percent more waste in the landfill,” he said.

If the bioreactor landfill is cost-effective to operate, it could reduce the number of new landfills needed to augment the 67 landfills currently operating in Florida, Schert said.

Projections show Florida’s population is expected to rise from the current 14 million to 23 million people by 2020. Residents, meanwhile, are throwing away more trash each year, with the average resident tossing 3,000 pounds of trash annually in 1996, compared with 2,600 pounds in 1988, Schert said. Recycling captures 35 to 40 percent of household waste, but that figure is not expected to rise because it includes cardboard, glass bottles, steel and aluminum cans and newspapers, the most common recyclables, Schert said.

“The need for new landfills is going to increase dramatically,” he said. “That’s the whole point of the bioreactor.”

The Florida Legislature approved the $3.2 million from the DEP’s Solid Waste Management Trust Fund at its most recent session. UF and the University of Central Florida will spearhead the project, but faculty and staff at all universities in the state system are expected to participate.