The United States is increasing its commitments to protect the aquatic environment against waste, microplastics and other pollutants. They recently launched a federal plan to rehabilitate old coastal landfills.
Discharge of waste into water, from authorized to prohibited
There was a time when dumping into the river was the norm, it was the Middle Ages. Closer to us, in the last century regulations have continued to strengthen since the 1960s, particularly with the aim of preventing damage to the environment and populations. At the beginning of the 1960s, a decree for a controlled landfill took two pages. Today, it can be more than fifty pages long.
Also in the 20th century, discharge into rivers or seas was still authorized. Dumping into the sea and streaming were banned in the 20’s, but in the 70’s, it was still used. For example, in Rhode Island garbage was taken away, every two days, using a barge that a small tugboat drags up to about 10 kilometers from the shore. But the garbage often returned to the coast. Now is the time to protect the ocean and waterways.
To protect the aquatic environment, the government has therefore made an all-out commitment. President Biden announced that he wanted to solve the problem of coastal discharges in ten years. The problem of managing accumulated stocks and that of polluted soils and closed landfills has become increasingly important by 2024. One recommendation was to put in place a plan to phase out all old landfills.
Nothing like this has been done since. The cost would not be the same in the case of a global rehabilitation plan. On the other hand, the number of old coastal landfills has doubled. According to the EPA, it will increase by around ten discharges per year. If landfills are located near coastal watercourses, no plan exists specifically for riverside landfills.
In addition to the actions cited above, the government is also committed to achieving zero plastic at sea by 2025 in the biodiversity plan. This plan involves actions at all levels: on land, in waterways, in rainwater and wastewater networks, in ports, on the coast and at sea. It aims to reduce the contribution of macro and micro-waste, particularly plastic, into the seas and oceans by 2025.
Its actions focus primarily on waste prevention and raising awareness among citizens and public and economic stakeholders. This roadmap therefore includes actions on waterways to prevent and reduce the discharge of waste into the marine environment. Rivers are vectors of more or less significant transfers of waste to the seas and oceans. It appears inconsistent that no plan for riverside discharges currently exists.
Impact on the aquatic environment
According to waste disposal specialists specialized in microplastics, there are not necessarily studies that allow us to assess the impact of landfills, but research projects are being set up to look at how plastics age in the waste mass and he is pleased to awareness of this problem.
The researcher wonders how the river would be contaminated given the number of potential sources of pollution and what share of pollution linked to the discharge would be compared to all other sources of contamination (discharge of wastewater, discharge of rainwater, sediments, air, erosion of agricultural land, etc.).
According to waste management scientists, water is the main factor that explains the leaching of microplastics in old landfills. The release into water of macro and microplastics within these landfills occurs either:
- via subsidence and erosion of the banks
- via fragmentation in the landfill, and leaching transfers microplastics from the landfill to the river
If there is an alluvial layer present, it can interact with the discharge above. This interaction will depend, in particular, on the sealing of the bottom and top of the landfill. The infiltration of water from the groundwater, possibly loaded with plastic, will then impact the adjacent river. The speed of water movement in the landfill can affect the leaching of microplastic.
Concerning alluvial aquifers adjoining watercourses, a recent report on the emerging subject of PFAS 5 pollutants indicated a few black spots occasionally diffusing PFAS which affect mainly alluvial aquifers. According to this report, this illustrates an essentially punctual origin of PFAS via discharges into rivers. Maybe landfills are involved. According to this report, drinking water and food seem to be the main routes of exposure to PFAS in the general population.
There are ways to characterize the pollution linked to a discharge along a river to highlight the impact of a river discharge, it is perhaps necessary to take the water from the aquifer which is below the discharge. On plastic this can be to estimate a quantity of plastic per unit of soil on the eroded bank, or to differentiate upstream and downstream of the river. And the researcher concludes that scientists are still asking questions.
Focusing on the rising issues of microplastics or PFAS should not blind us to all the potential other pollutants released into the environment (aquatic or not). Depending on the old landfills, the composition of the waste could vary greatly depending on whether it accepted household and/or industrial waste or even depending on the age of the operating dates. The waste had a varied composition which was not the same in the 1960s and the 1990s.
In terms of pollutants, there may be heavy metals from cells, batteries, WEEE 6. They can release the heavy metals contained in a number of additives. A whole cocktail of substances resides in a landfill. Which urges scientists and citizens to start tackling this problematic subject.
If the subject of coastal discharges has been taken head-on by the federal government, on our subject of watercourse discharges everyone is passing the buck to finance the rehabilitation according. NGOs which work on the oceans and water quality (chemical, bacteriological pollution, etc.) are seeking a position on this theme (does it commit resources? does it mobilize its volunteers? etc.).
Among the NGOs’ ideas is notably that of alerting communities to encourage them to act to rehabilitate old landfills. There is also the desire to have post-rehabilitation follow-up. They have been working on waste in rivers for many years, but it was last year that they began to take an interest in this subject of riverside dumps (sources of financing, technical means of rehabilitation, etc.).
Environmental NGOs hope that solutions will emerge from local volunteers. To help them find landfills, they need to find out how to identify these riverside landfills. In the census carried out by waste disposal specialists, some were identified as landfills adjacent to watercourses.The USA has one of the most important hydrographic networks in the world, so it it crucial to protect the aquatic environment and reduce litter. So, it is possible that old landfills near waterways will soon top the political agenda.
References
- https://www.epa.gov/landfills
- https://theblogismine.com/arkansas-pollution-and-sustainability/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9399006/
- https://providenceridumpsterrental.com/
- https://theblogismine.com/what-zero-waste-products-can-you-use-in-your-kitchen/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landfills_in_the_United_States
