It’s inevitable: human activity generates waste. Actually, all living organisms generate waste. Humans generate far more waste than any other organism, and managing that waste is an endless challenge. Collecting, treating, and storing waste also requires sensitivity to environmental factors to avoid widespread damage to both small and large ecosystems.
Landfills, sewage and wastewater treatment plants, and industrial or hospital solid waste sites are examples where waste must be contained while it is being processed to make it safe for a return to the environment or for permanent disposal. In these cases, the primary exposure concern involves the movement of water, which can easily pick up contaminants and carry them outside the containment area. This risk is typically controlled by focusing on preventing water from escaping the containment area, allowing it to leach chemicals and other contaminants, and carry it into the underlying soil. This strategy is often augmented by placing covers over the waste to limit the amount of liquid that enters the containment area in the first place
Wastewater Treatment Facilities
Wastewater treatment plants may include those devoted to stormwater and some types of non-toxic industrial waste, but in common parlance, they’re assumed to be handling various types of municipal wastewater, including sewage. Sewage treatment begins by breaking the waste down using mechanical, chemical, and biological methods. During any of these steps, the liquid waste cannot be allowed to escape into the environment, so a series of robust containment protocols are required, including primary and secondary containment. In each case, the selection of impermeable materials, that can withstand exposure to a wide variety of chemicals and physical wear, are absolutely necessary. Composite geomembranes such as RPE are popular and effective choices for wastewater facilities, whether they’re employed as liners for storage tanks, tank covers to divert rainfall and allow disruption from environmental effects, or as key elements in a secondary containment strategy.
RPE liners are resistant to a wide range of chemicals typically found in municipal waste and are extremely durable for decades of dependable service. Custom fabricated liners allow facilities managers to simplify the fit and installation of containment materials, saving money in materials, installation, and necessity of future repairs.
Landfills
Municipal landfills handle a wide variety of waste, complicated by the difficulty of limiting what kind of materials enter the waste stream. So, a landfill may end up storing not only household garbage and a vast load of plastics, but a variety of toxic materials like chemicals, heavy metals, and dangerous microorganisms. Modern landfills are designed to encourage the breakdown of organic wastes, as well as for long-term containment of waste that’s not considered recoverable.
Because of the types of waste involved, it’s imperative that each element in a landfill be protected from excessive precipitation, wildlife access, and from the possibility of leachate escaping into the environment and groundwater. In the past, before rigorous protections were put in place, many landfills were known to cause severe illness and other health effects many miles away by contaminating groundwater, which then traveled freely to other communities.
Modern landfills employ impervious geomembranes by lining individual cells and covering active cells to prevent flooding or wind disruption of recently dumped garbage. Once a cell has been completed, a permanent cover, composed of RPE or similar composite geomembrane, is put in place. RPE is also used in a secondary containment layer that often includes sensors to alert engineers if a leak is detected.
The travel of stormwater on a landfill site is also carefully managed. To prevent the incursion of rain or snow, which may cause flooding of individual landfill cells, or the saturation of surrounding soil, a series of lined channels and ditches are used to capture and divert the flow, carrying the stormwater to lined detention ponds, rather than simply allowing it to escape into the environment.
Temporary Containment
There are plenty of situations where accumulated waste needs reliable containment, but only for a limited period of time. Whether waste needs to be moved in order to perform repairs and upgrades to an existing containment structure, or extra capacity is needed during a period of particularly high activity, the containment has the same standards and safety requirements as the long-term storage facilities. There are plenty of businesses that specialize in renting or selling modular containment systems. They’re convenient because they’re designed for quick, easy setup in whatever configuration that’s suited for your available space. Other temporary structures may include above-ground tanks configured as large circles owing to the inherent stability of that shape.
Each of these temporary structures demand impermeable liners to prevent leaks and seeps between structural elements. Covers may also be required to control the risk of flooding or wildlife access. RPE is usually the material of choice since it’s lightweight and flexible, and easily conforms to a variety of shapes, including sharp corners. In cases where the configuration is known, complete liners can be fabricated in advance and shipped directly to the site, ready to be dropped in with no need for on-site cutting and seaming.
