The Use of Water Treatment Sludge as a Landfill Cover Material

정수장(淨水場) 슬러지의 매립장(埋立場) 복토재(覆土材)로의 활용(活用)에 관(關)한 연구(硏究)

Dewatered sludge of 400,000t/y from water treatment plants in Korea is being disposed through landfill and ocean dumping. However, the disposal is posing more and more serious environmental problems at the same time not only because of landfill site shortage in municipal suburbs, but because of the concern it will contaminate the oceans. In this study, the research on utilizing the sludge dried by flash dryer as covering soil in the landfill sites was carried out to solve these problems on environmental affinity. Both dewatered and dried sludge were exposed to the natural condition and observed according to the atmospheric changes. An experiment of soil engineering characteristics of the dried sludge and tests on mixed sludge(silty sandy soil : dried sludge = 10:90 ~ 30:70) such as particle size distribution, liquid and plastic limit, moisture content, specific gravity and compaction test were carried out. According to the compaction test, the compaction was confirmed as the optimum water content ratio was observed in the condition of SM-silty sand of particle size distribution, NP of liquid and plastic limit, 101.4% of moisture content, 2.04~2.12 of specific gravity. The results showed that dried sludges mixed with at least 30% of natural soil could be used as daily covering soil in the landfill sites.