Stochastic approach to municipal solid waste landfill life based on the contaminant transit time modeling using the Monte Carlo (MC) simulation

The paper is concerned with application and benefits of MC simulation proposed for estimating the life of a modern municipal solid waste (MSW) landfill. The software Crystal Ball® (CB), simulation program that helps analyze the uncertainties associated with Microsoft® Excel models by MC simulation, was proposed to calculate the transit time contaminants in porous media. The transport of contaminants in soil is represented by the one-dimensional (1D) form of the advection–dispersion equation (ADE). The computer program CONTRANS written in MATLAB language is foundation to simulate and estimate the thickness of landfill compacted clay liner. In order to simplify the task of determining the uncertainty of parameters by the MC simulation, the parameters corresponding to the expression Z2 taken from this program were used for the study. The tested parameters are: hydraulic gradient (HG), hydraulic conductivity (HC), porosity (POROS), linear thickness (TH) and diffusion coefficient (EDC). The principal output report provided by CB and presented in the study consists of the frequency chart, percentiles summary and statistics summary. Additional CB options provide a sensitivity analysis with tornado diagrams. The data that was used include available published figures as well as data concerning the Mittal Steel Poland (MSP) S.A. in Kraków, Poland. This paper discusses the results and show that the presented approach is applicable for any MSW landfill compacted clay liner thickness design.

► Numerical simulation of waste in porous media is proposed.
► Statistic outputs based on correct assumptions about probability distribution are presented.
► The benefits of a MC simulation are examined.
► The uniform probability distribution is studied.
► I report a useful tool applied to determine the life of a modern MSW landfill.