Integrated Resiliency and Sustainability Assessment of Bioreactor Landfills

Bioreactor landfills, which recirculate leachate to improve moisture conditions and nutrient distribution to accelerate waste decomposition, offer a promising solution to the limitations of conventional landfills. However, the resilience and sustainability of bioreactor landfills have received limited attention despite extensive research, focusing on various landfill processes and their coupled interactions, to understand the performance of bioreactor landfills. Given the pressing concerns regarding climate change and the need for sustainable and resilient engineering, it is crucial to evaluate the resiliency and sustainability of bioreactor landfills for practical implementation. Hence, this study aims to perform a comparative assessment of resilience and sustainability between conventional landfills and bioreactor landfills using the tiered quantitative assessment of life cycle sustainability and resiliency (TQUALICSR) framework. A resilience assessment evaluating the technical resilience of each type of landfill to various shocks and assessing the corresponding triple bottom line implications in case of a failure was performed. Subsequently, a comprehensive sustainability assessment considering the environmental, economic, and social aspects throughout the life cycle of both landfill types was carried out. The results demonstrate that bioreactor landfills provide a more resilient and sustainable approach to waste management compared to conventional landfills. The benefits of bioreactor landfills, such as higher energy recovery, shorter stabilization time, and economic viability, outweighed the associated risks and costs of leachate recirculation. Additionally, the environmental and economic benefits of energy recovery from landfill gas were more apparent in the bioreactor landfills than conventional landfills. Moreover, the study reveals that bioreactor landfills are relatively more socially acceptable, indicating their potential for wider adoption. Overall, this study provides a compelling case for the adoption of bioreactor landfills as a more sustainable and resilient solution for waste management, by addressing the limitations of conventional landfills, offering a range of benefits including environmental impact reduction, economic viability, and social acceptability.