Comprehensive assessment of the leachate quality and its pollution potential from six municipal waste dumpsites of India

In the present study, an assessment was carried out for the leachate characteristics from six major landfills of India. These landfills are located in Delhi, Hyderabad and Kadapa. The physicochemical parameters and heavy metals content of the leachate were analyzed. The total dissolved solids, hardness, alkalinity, sulfates and, chlorides in (mg/L) were found to be 15,000–50,000, 10,000–30,000, 10,000–20,000, 300–1500, 5000–10,000 respectively in the leachate collected from all the six landfills. The effect of aging was also assessed on the basis of the characteristics of the leachate collected from two locations of the same landfill (located at Hyderabad and Okhla, Delhi), one fresh outflow and the other accumulated in the pond. It was found that the leachate from fresh waste was more hazardous in comparison to the leachate accumulated in the pond. The level of almost all the physicochemical parameters with respect to the regulatory threshold was found higher at all the landfill sites. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd