Impact of Leachate Percolation on Groundwater Quality near the Bandhwari Landfill Site Gurugram, India

Abstract

Non-engineered landfill sites pose substantial environmental threats, especially on air, biodiversity, soil fertility, human health. In addition, they have significant threats to groundwater resources. As a result, areas lying close to these landfills have a higher chance of groundwater contamination because of the leachate originating from these sites. Therefore, physico-chemical, heavy metal and organic pollutants were examined to study the effects of leachate seepage on groundwater quality collected in and around the Bandhwari sanitary landfill site. The study results revealed that parameters such as TDS, total hardness, COD, cations, anions, and heavy metals (Cd and Pb) exceeded the BIS limits and WHO limits. It depicts that contaminant from the landfill site have made their way into the groundwater, adversely affecting the quality of groundwater of the vicinal area, despite the existing quartzite geological setup and deep aquifers. The concentration of COD in groundwater samples around landfill ranged between 08–152 mg/L, and COD in leachate samples ranged between 14000–14800 mg/L. The concentration of BOD in groundwater samples ranged between 1.0–30 mg/L, and BOD for leachate samples ranged between 6771–7617 mg/L. The samples analysed for organochlorine, carbanates and organo-phosphorus pesticides shows that pesticides concentration is within the acceptable limit of 0.001 µg/L.