(What is the Clean Center Futaba?) What is the Landfill Facility for the Specified Waste? (Vol. 3)

(The picture above is for illustrative purpose)

Hello, everyone. My name is Daichi, an expert providing the information on the radiation issues in an easy-to-understand manner.

In this article, overview of the 2 Landfill Facilities for the Specified Waste was covered, and in this article, of the 2 facilities, by focusing on the Former Fukushima Eco-tech Clean Center, the specific methods for landfill of the Specified Waste, as well as treatment methods of resulting leachate in the facility were elaborated.

In this artcile, as a subsequent work, kinds of waste to be diposed of, specific landfill methods of the waste and treatment methods of leachate in the Clean Center Futaba, another facility for the landifill of the Specified Waste, will be elaborated.

In other words, this article will respond to the following questions:

– What kind of waste is disposed of in the Clean Center Futaba?
– How is the waste disposed of in the Clean Center Futaba?
– How is leachate treated in the Clean Center Futaba?

Table of contents of this article

I have been involved with the radiation-relevant issues, like the policy on the decontamination activities and the management of the Interim Storage Facility, after the accident of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2011.

I received a doctorate in the field of radiation, while working in Fukushima.

(What is the Clean Center Futaba?) What is the Landfill Facility for the Specified Waste? (Vol. 3)

As above-mentioned, this article mainly covers the Clean Center Futaba, one of the 2 Landfill Facilities for the Specified Waste.

Kinds of waste to be disposed of in the Clean Center Futaba

In this affected areas, as explained in this article, landfill of the Specified Waste in the Former Fukushima Eco-tech Clean Center, had been in advance implemented, but there had been the following issues to be addressed with regard to the waste treatment.

– Landfill of household waste generated in Futaba County is currently scheduled to be completed around in November 2027, and a facility for subsequent treatment is needed.
– A facility to treat waste arising from constrcution of infrastructures for the reconstruction of Futaba County is needed.
– Waste to be disposed of in the Former Fukushima Eco-tech Clean Center is supposed to be only the Specified Waste generated in the areas other than the Restrcted Areas, therefore a facility to treat the Specified Waste generated in the Specific Reconstruction and Revitilization Base Areas is needed.

To address the above issues, in the Clean Center Futaba, the following kinds of waste are supposed to be landfilled.

– Household waste generated in Futaba County (after around November 2027)
– Waste generated through construction of infrastructures or other kinds of business activities implemented in Futaba County
– Specified Waste generated in the Specific Reconstruction and Revitilization Base Areas (only with radioactivity concentration of 100,000 Bq/kg or less)

Period of landfill is scheduled to be around 10 years, with review according to the progress of the project, and its operation had been resumed from June 1, 2023, after coordination with local stakeholders.

Landfill methods of waste in the Clean Center Futaba

(Reference: created based on the website of the Ministry of the Environment, Japan)

Basic concept of landfill method is, as shown in the above figure, but as explained in this article, as is the case with the Former Fukushima Eco-tech Clean Center, waste solidified with cement, and waste not solidified with cement, are separately landfilled in the different sections.

More specific landfill methods are shown in the above figure.

This is an exmple of the landfill site constructed during the 2nd period, where there is no existing waste, but specifically, impermeable sheets are laid for whole areas to prevent leakage of leachate out of the landfill site (a).

On the impermeable sheets, as implemented in the Former Fukushima Eco-tech Clean Center, waste is piled up, being shielded in the containers (b).

In the Clean Center Futaba, cubic containers are used, instead of containers for ground improvement, even when the waste is not solidified by cement.

After piling up the waste for a couple of layers, an impermeable soil layer is laid, to adsorb the radioactive cesium, in the unlikely event that radioactive cesium is leaked out of the containers (c).

And operations will be repeated, that after piling up waste in a couple of layers, impermeable a soil layer is laid, followed by further piling up waste in a couple of layers (c).

As is also the case with the Former Fukushima Eco-tech Clean Center, but in the areas, where lanfill operation is not carried out, the surface is always temporarily covered with capping sheets, in order to reduce intrusion of rainfall into the landill site, and reduce contact between the rainfall and the lanfilled waste, that will result in less volume of leachate to be treated in the leachate treatment facility (d).

Further to that, on the slopes of the landfill site, as well as inside of the landfill site, gas ventilation pipes are equipped, in order to let flammable gas go into the atmosphere instead of be accumulated in the landfill site, even if flammable gas is generated due to the fermentation of organic matters (e).

In addition, impermeable soil layers have slope, so that leachate will be drained out of the landfill site as soon as possible, even if rainfall comes into the landfill site.

Treatment methods of leachate in the Clean Center Futaba

By the way, treatment methods of leachate generated in the landfill site, are same as those of the Former Fukushima Eco-tech Clean Center.

First, leachate drained from the landfill site is sent to the leachate balancing tank (a), further sent to the leachate treatment facility (b).

In this facility, organic matters and heavy metals are removed through coagulation, sedimentation and filtration procedures (c).

Water treated in the leachate treatment facility is temporarily stored in the treated water balancing tank (d).

With regard to the water in the treated water balancing tank, its radioactivity concentration is monitored (e), and it is released into the environment (f), after it is confirmed, that it is below the criterion.

In the unlikely event, that the radioactivity concentration in the treated water is above the criterion, radioactive materials are adsorbed in the zeolite adsorption tower (g).

After that, it is released into the environment (h), after it is confirmed that it is comply with the criterion.

Other treatment methods of the Specified Waste

If you read this article, which covers treatment of waste and soil arising from decontamination activities, this article, which covers the Specified Waste itself, this article and this article, which have so far covered the Landfill Facilities for the Specified Waste, you can roughly grasp the overview of the treatment of the Specified Waste.

However, not all the Specified Waste is supposed to be disposed of in this landfill facility, but part of the waste is recycled based on domestic regulations.

So far the treatment pathway based on the Act on Special Measures concerning the Handling of Pollution by Radioactive Materials (in Japanese) has been covered, but there are other pathways based on the Waste Management and Public Cleansing Act　(in Japanese) and other treatments based on the acts for specific kinds of waste, for example, the Recycling of Specified Kinds of Home Appliances (in Japanese).

They will be covered in the future, if there are opportunities.

Summary

As the last article of the series of works, the Clean Center Futaba was elaborated, one of the 2 facilities for the landfill of the Specified Waste.

Treatment of the Specified Waste might not be so well-known, compared with ‘decontamination’ activities, but it is one of the very important works, including treatment of debris generated due to Tsunami, waste arising from dismantling of houses, toward reconstruction of the affected areas.

The Specified Waste is generated especially in the Restricted Areas, and treatment of the waste will still continue, so I would like to pay my attention to the progress of the projects.

By the way, above-mentioned contents are summarized in the following videos.

It would be appreciated to visit them at your convenience.

– Japanese version

– English version

You can read the same article in Japanese here.

Thank you very much for reading this article.

See you next time!