The new system ranks dangerous landfill pollutants in order of toxicity

With nearly 2,000 active landfills spread across the United States, most of the garbage discarded by homes and businesses is finding a way to landfills. Chemicals and toxins that accumulate in these areas can leach into soil and groundwater, and this “leach” can pose a serious danger to the environment and those living nearby.

To help environmental agencies combat the toxic threats posed by landfills, University of Missouri researchers are working with the USDA Department of Agriculture to rank the toxins present in landfills in order of toxicity and quantity. Was developed. Create a more specific and efficient plan to combat the exudate.

Exudates from landfills can cause cancer and other serious harm and are a threat whether ingested, inhaled or contacted. This is the first time a system has been created that can automatically prioritize pollutants released from landfills based on toxicity and abundance. “

Associate Research Professor, Chung-Ho Lin, University of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, MU Center for Agroforestry

This system relies on an algorithm created by Elizabeth Rogers and USDA Pathways Intern, PhD students working under the guidance of Lin at the University of Missouri. Rogers leveraged an existing system designed to prioritize chemicals in “hydraulic fracturing” wastewater and adapted it for landfill pollution.

By combining algorithms with three “toxic databases” that are referenced when analyzing samples from landfills, the system is a traditional time-consuming and costly process (identifying pollutants, their abundance and potential). Judge the harm) and make it routine. The result is a prioritization system that can rank pollutants by taking into account both the overall toxicity and prevalence at a particular site. In addition, pollutant prioritization can be easily customized based on factors and goals that may vary from site to site.

Ronald Zaresny Jr., a research plant geneticist at the USDA Department of Agriculture, who leads Rogers, collaborated with Lynn and Rogers on a study to optimize the prioritization system and explore its usefulness. For him, the ability to easily identify, quantify and rank pollutants in landfills meets very realistic needs.

Zalesny Jr. is a senior researcher on a project to use trees to purify polluted soil and landfill water. Through a natural process known as phytoremediation, poplar and willow trees help decompose, absorb, and otherwise block pollutants and the outflow of groundwater that carries them.

Zalesny Jr. states that it is important to know which pollutants are the most important targets in a particular location.

“To date, we’ve focused primarily on the most common pollutants, such as herbicides and pollutants from crude oil,” says Zalesny Jr. Mr. says. “With this prioritization tool, you basically go to polluted areas, identify top pollutants, match those pollutants with trees, and clean up the pollution in a sustainable, long-term manner. You can create a solution. “

The Zalesny Jr. project is part of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative aimed at protecting the Great Lakes from environmental degradation by funding federal agencies. According to Zalesny Jr., contaminated runoff from landfills that flow into rivers and streams can eventually flow into the Great Lakes.

Rogers, who created an algorithm that can quickly classify pollutants by relative toxicity, believes that this system has another important advantage. Many landfill regulations have not been updated for decades, but new classes of pollutants continue to arrive at landfills, which is a problem for those trying to mitigate their effects. By providing scientists and researchers with up-to-date information on the potential of hundreds of pollutants, prioritization systems can help environmental agencies address these dangerous new arrivals.

“Some of the most potentially harmful compounds identified using this scheme are from antibiotics, prescription drugs, etc. and can have serious consequences for the human endocrine system,” Rogers said. Mr. says. “There were also compounds from personal care products. We know that these new classes of compounds can have a negative impact, but we don’t know much yet, so they will eventually become landfills. This system will encourage more research on their effects. “