QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE ASSESMENT OF LANDFILL LEACHATE IN DELHI, INDIA

Dumpsites are an important part of daily life; they can pose long-term threats to hydrologically related groundwater and surface waters, and inevitably to the Yamuna River as well. Leachate is created from the decomposition of garbage as well as precipitation that infiltrates and percolates in the volume of waste material and settles down to the bottom of the landfill, causing chemical reactions and physical mixing along with ingredients contained in the waste subjected. Along with organic matter, heavy metals and ammonium, leachate typically has a high concentration of toxic compounds.At the bottom of the landfill, this leachate accumulates and percolates into the soil to ground water. Therefore, the key cause of the possibility of leachate contamination to the groundwater is the improper geological material under the landfill. Heavy metals and hazardous materials in leachate can be responsible for long-term human health problems Waste placed in landfills or open dumps is either subject to groundwater underflow or precipitation infiltration. Groundwater supplies have increasingly been affected in recent decades by the leaching of pollutants containing industrial and/or household waste from unregulated landfills. Therefore, a periodic evaluation is required for thedetermination of the quality of leachate percolating to groundwater to be used for human consumption. In this analysis, leachate samples from the three landfills were obtained, accompanied by laboratory testing procedures to assess and establish the biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), total nitrogen (TN), phosphate (PO4), total suspended solids (TSS), total dissolved solids (TDS), turbidity, pH, salinity and electrical conductivity (EC) levels in these samples. Without any pre-treatment carried out, the landfill leachate was collected and analysed to assess the consistency of landfill leachate and ground water.