As a response to numerous failures and poor performance of environmental closures at landfills, engineers have looked at new approaches to establish a more physically stable and environmentally sound solution. Traditional landfills require large amounts of soil for their construction, and many experience on-going erosion and sedimentation issues.

Traditional covers are highly reliant on trucking soils, heavy civil construction, on-going maintenance and repairs in order to maintain their integrity. New methods are needed to lower the impact on the environment throughout the capping construction process.

A potential solution to landfill closure failures, construction/operation environmental impacts has been the implementation of exposed geomembranes. However there are disadvantages to these systems such as: accessibility, lack of membrane protection, wind uplift issues and aesthetics. The latest approach presented here builds off of the success of using exposed geomembranes with a number of improvements to address the disadvantages of exposed systems. This system incorporates high interface friction materials, and multiple layers of protection provided by a 3 component system.  Since it utilizes a sand infill as one of its patented components, it is not considered an exposed geomembrane system and also does not need a thick soil and vegetative layer like traditional cover systems require. This system also provides for a stable and rapid installation which allows for the capture of landfill gas emissions at earlier phases of development.

To read the full white paper, click here: A True Green Closure.