Landfills enclosed by cut-of walls & the 1999 Council Directive

According to the directive’s text the basic sealing has to include a “geological barrier” and an artificial mineral layer. Additionally, a leachate collection system is obligatory. There is no statement whatsoever on possible alternatives. For the Austrian authorities this means that all landfills without a basic sealing and/or without a leachate collection system will be shut down in a few years – even those landfills with an enclosure by a cut-off wall. The authors were commissioned by the Association of Austrian Cities and Towns (Österreichischer Städtebund) to develop a method to demonstrate the equivalence of the sealing systems of two Austrian landfill sites (landfill „Am Ziegelofen“ St. Pölten and landfill „Rautenweg“ Vienna) with the directive’s requirements. Both sites can neither exhibit a basic sealing nor a leachate collection system but are enclosed by cut-off walls (two lines of one-face diaphragm walls in St. Pölten, two lines of Austria cut-off walls in Vienna).