Case Studies

Odor and flies vanish from the landfill

Costa Rica
Country:
Costa Rica
Category:
Waste Treatment
Tag:
Cyclic
Odor and flies vanish from the landfill
Overview:Current landfill point in the middle. Waste water treatment facility on the right.
Overview:Current landfill point in the middle. Waste water treatment facility on the right.
There are about 1.4 million people living in and around San Jose, Costa Rica. How to treat the residential waste in this area is a big problem.

It is collected to Ebi Aserri, a waste treatment facility, which employs a very unique way of waste treatment with EM application.

EM is used for eliminating bad odor and processing the leachate from the waste. By transferring the EM-processed water back to the landfill, they aim for a cyclic EM treatment.
 
The landfill is expanded when necessary, and there still is land to last 20 more years. When the landfill area is expanded, the bottom part is covered with plastic sheets first, and pipes are installed for draining leachate and discharging methane gas. Generated gas is released though the pipes and chimneys, and is burnt when necessary.
Water treatment facility
Water treatment facility
Leachate is drained through the same pipes time to time, and transferred to the water treatment facility.
 
They use screw type aeration method and activated sludge method to process the leachate. The treated water is brought back to the disposal site. By circulating EM treated water within the whole facility, the total volume of microorganisms will keep increasing.
 
At the landfill, Activated EM・1 is sprayed every day. The problem of bad odor and flies was solved. Especially, there are very few flies in the facility, which is drastically less than the other waste treatment sites.
 
Residential Waste from San Jose
Residential Waste from San Jose
The waste is driven over by heavy machines.
The waste is driven over by heavy machines.

(Updated in June, 2017)

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