ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the concept of landfill reclamation and the recovery of materials and landfill volume as the final step in bioreactor landfill operation. It outlines the concept of integrating existing technologies to both treat and recover solid waste in bioreactor landfills. The expense and effort involved in the siting, design, and construction of modern sanitary landfills makes disposal capacity a valuable commodity. A landfill that is excavated to reduce the mass and volume of material which must be permanently land disposed presents an opportunity for reuse of the landfill capacity. Treatment of waste in a landfill bioreactor ultimately produces the same end-product as other forms of biological treatment—a stabilized compost-like material. Once a conceptual model for a bioreactor with reclamation has been developed, it is necessary to perform a mass balance analysis to size the bioreactor landfill units, to determine the amount of reclaimed material, and to estimate the composition of the reclaimed material.
