Characterization of the leachate produced by the San Pedro La Laguna landfill, Guatemala

Abstract

In the Lake Atitlán’s basin in Guatemala, specifically in the department of Sololá, town of San Pedro la Laguna, a sanitary landfill was built in 2016 for the final disposal of the municipality's inorganic solid waste. The landfill generates leachates whose characteristics are unknown; this condition has prevented taking control measures and implementing an adequate treatment of leachates. The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the behavior of the leachate produced by the inorganic waste that is disposed in this landfill. To achieve this goal, test was carried out during the dry and rainy season of thirteen physical and chemical parameters, and the volume of leachate produced was measured. During the study, the relationship between the physicochemical characteristics of the leachate and the precipitation that falls over the landfill was evaluated, showing that some parameters in the leachate such as chromium increase in winter, passing from a maximum value in summer of 1.94 mg/l. to a maximum of 4.56 mg/l., during winter. This behavior is repeated in eight of the parameters evaluated in the study (chemical oxygen demand, ammonium nitrogen, total phosphorus, orthophosphates, alkalinity, potassium, sodium, and chromium). With the results obtained, it was possible to determine that the landfill generates a leachate considered young. This study may be used as a reference for the treatment of leachate from landfills that produce young leachate and receive only inorganic waste within the Lake Atitlán Basin.