DISCUSSIONS ON ALTERNATIVES FOR THE TREATMENT OF LANDFILL LEACHATE IN BRAZIL BEFORE THE CHALLENGE OF EMERGING CONTAMINANTS

Landfills are a final waste disposal technique that meets Brazilian legal requirements. However, the processes that take place in the landfill cells give rise to an effluent of a complex composition called leachate, which requires adequate treatment. Different leachate treatment processes considered advanced have been used in Brazil. In addition, a very common strategy is to send the leachate to the wastewater treatment plants (WWTP), so that the two effluents are treated together. However, both the processes adopted in the leachate treatment plants and those used in the WWTP, aim to remove organic matter and nutrients, not considering the so-called emerging contaminants. Therefore, this work aims to discuss the main forms of treatment of landfill leachate, with an emphasis on removing these contaminants. Many of the studied treatment techniques are already adopted to treat leachate in Brazilian landfills, which may mean eventual removal of these compounds. The inclusion of these techniques, as a step of pre-treatment of leachate and post-treatment in the STPs that receive it, could promote the reduction of emerging contaminants in the final effluent.