Modified sewage sludge as temporary landfill cover material

In order to study the feasibility of modified sewage sludge as landfill cover material and its performance in a complex landfill environment, strength and hydraulic conductivity tests were conducted. The permeability requirements for daily and interim covers were analyzed first. Based on saturated-unsaturated seepage calculations, it is suggested that approximately 1.0 × 10−4 cm/s and 1.0 × 10−5 cm/s are the appropriate values for the hydraulic conductivities of daily and interim covers, respectively. The strength and permeability requirements of the mixtures, when used as an interim cover, can be met at a sludge:lime:cement:silt:tire-derived aggregate (TDA) weight ratio of 100:15:5:70:15. Results also demonstrate that the solid content ratio of modified sewage sludge, which should be greater than 60% when modified sewage sludge is used as a temporary cover material, is crucial to both strength and hydraulic performance. In addition, as the duration of soaking of modified sewage sludge in synthetic leachate increases, the unconfined compressive strength increases, and the hydraulic conductivity decreases slightly or fluctuates between 1.0 × 10−5 cm/s and 1.0 × 10−6 cm/s, still meeting the requirements for an interim cover. The reduction in hydraulic conductivity of modified sewage sludge under the effect of synthetic leachate, as well as the long-term and environmental performance of the modified sewage sludge, should be examined in future studies.