Assessment of the Monitoring of an Industrial Waste Landfill

Industrial waste deposited in landfills poses a threat to the environment and can cause its deterioration. The physical and chemical processes that result in the formation of a number of harmful substances occur in the mass of stored waste. When released to the environment these compounds can be dangerous to all its elements, especially to groundwater. The monitoring of landfill impact plays an important role in assessing the state of the environment. It allows us to follow what changes take place in the waste bed itself, and in particular elements of the environment. On the basis of long-term monitoring studies (conducted in the years 1995-2016), the quality of groundwater around the industrial waste landfill in Zgierz was determined and its impact on the environment was characterized. The quality of conducted monitoring was assessed in relation to the current regulations. Analysis of the results of groundwater quality tests confirms that the industrial landfill in the operational phase due to a number of applied security measures has not contributed to the deterioration of groundwater quality. In the post-operational phase, groundwater contamination is observed, and consequently irreversible changes occur in the environment. The negative impact of the landfill can be due to the disruption of sealing layers and elution of pollutants from the waste by rainwater. The landfill site monitoring plays a key role in assessing causal relationships occurring between the state of the landfill and elements of the environment in its vicinity.