Risk Management

Based on risk assesment, a bespoke landfill risk management can be applied. 

Landfill risk management can be situated at different levels:

1. Proactive engineering consists of installing protective equipment prior to the landfill activities. This type of protection is often legally obliged, such as the use of mineral layers and artificial liners in combination with leachate drinage systems. Specifics risks can sometimes require higher specifications than legally required. This is often related to specific characteristics of the leachate that might enhance the degradation processes of the HDPE and/or clay. Therefore, often extra measures are taking to temorarily protect the confinement layers during exploitation of the landfill. These phenonema also indicate the importance of adequate leachate extraction systems.

2. Reactive engineering consists of foreseeing the potential installation of curative equipment in a later stage, more specific in case of failure of the proactive engineered systems. Reactive engineering requires  good knowledge of the potential pollutants and their preferential pathways. Reactive engineering can consist of both active or passive protection techniques. As they might impose substantial costs, they are only implemented in case of obvious failure of pro-active engineering.

3. Operational management is an essential aspect of landfill risk management. Procedures and follow up in operational management allow minimising risks related to landfill operation, by means of e.g early stage capping, intermediate biogas extraction, settlement monitoring, leachate recirculation, etc. Bespoke procedures are put together in specific road maps on operation, monitoring, communication, maintenance and safety .

4. Insurance is the final cap in landfill risk management, focussed on preventing exaggerated engineering and operational expenditures. Pollux Consulting has a broad experience in landfill insurance and directly communicates with leading international insurance companies to adequately cover potential risks concerning landfill construction, operation and aftercare.