Studies on contaminant transport at an industrial waste dumpsite of Bangalore, India

Abstract

Industrialization and urbanization has produced various types of wastes that sometimes are dumped in low-lying areas without proper treatment and engineering controls. Bangalore district has more than 60 illegal dumpsites consisting of either municipal or industrial waste. Government records indicate that more than 1,500 industries are working at various industrial areas and other locations around the city. In the present study an attempt has been made to characterize the Bommasandra industrial area dump site located at the south of Bangalore. This dump site is 15 to 20 years old and spreads on an area of 12.7 acres. Around 60 to 70 industries of all nature are located around this dump site. A large number of soil samples were collected and after site characterization of soil properties, an attempt has been made to predict the transport behavior of selected chemical species using available mathematical models and a program based on MATLAB- 7 to study the migration properties of these selected chemical species as a function of time. Also a model provided by USEPA DRASTIC has been used. The DRASTIC Index found for this dumpsite was 146; therefore, one can conclude that the studied dumpsite is moderately vulnerable to pollutants. The migrating behavior of cations such as sodium, calcium and anions such as sulphate, chloride were considered. It was observed that cations are better retarded in comparison to anions. This was attributed to exchangeable chemical reactions.