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Contamination from landfills, junkyards and scrapyards can pose a very real danger to human and environmental health. The contaminants released span the full spectrum of toxicity and carcinogenicity. Remediation of landfill, junkyard and scrapyard sites can be costly and time consuming, but it can be done. Technical Approaches to Characterizing and Redeveloping Municipal Landfills and Illegal Dump Brownfield Sites provides an overview of the contaminants and remediation technologies typically used at landfills and illegal dump brownfields, yet every site is unique, and developers will need to develop a remediation plan based upon the contamination actually present on-site.

By definition, a municipal solid waste landfill is a discrete area of land or an excavation that receives household waste, and that is not a land application unit, surface impoundment, injection well, or waste pile, as those terms are defined by law. Landfills/Junkyards/Scrapyards come in all shapes and sizes and can impact the environment in many different ways. Some dump sites may as be as small as a few barrels of waste oil, while the largest industrial waste landfill may cover 100 acres or more. The range of effects that dump sites and landfills can manifest upon the environment are just as diverse as the various forms the sites may take. If conditions are right, i.e. water and bacteria are present, which is the case with most lanfills and dumps, leachate and landfill gases (mostly methane)may be generated. Both may be composed of different contaminants and each represents a challenge for site revitalization. Taken together, they can affect the soils, ground and surface waters, and air in and around dumps and landfills, many times years after they have been closed. Because of unregulated use prior to 1970, or illegal dumping practices, landfills may contain volatile organic compounds, pesticides, PCBs, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, cyanides, heavy metals, and other contamination. Even household waste can contain small quantities of oil and grease, paint, corrosives, solvents and other miscellaneous consumer chemicals (EPA, 2002).

Waste decomposition in a landfill occurs first under aerobic and then under unaerobic conditions, generating first carbon dioxide and finally methane gas. Methane combined with air, may form an explosive combination. Methane and hydrogen sulfide, another landfill gas, are toxic. Leachate produced by water moving through deposited refuse represents a potential hazard to soils as well as surface and groundwater.Remediation of former landfill sites is somewhat different from remediation at other contaminated sites. For one, landfills often differ from other contaminated sites in the sheer volume and area of contamination. Also, site contamination is almost always spread throughout the entire site and cannot be remediated economically with most treatment technologies. The final remediation strategy for a site will depend mostly on the size of the landfill or dump site and the costs of the proposed remediation strategies.

Landfills and illegal dump sites pose a significant risk to human and environmental health. Yet as pressure for new land rises, especially in urban and suburban areas, these landfills, junkyards, and scrapyards are becoming valuable parcels of land and cost-effective and safe remediation of any contaminants on-site becomes a first priority.