Science and Engineering of Landfilled Waste Mechanics

This statement of research needs assumes an ongoing need to deposit and contain waste in landfill. Further, that landfills are designed, operated and subsequently managed in as technically efficient and environmentally sustainable manner as possible. There follows a need to understand better the internal processes that control the behaviour of the contained waste because it is these processes — a complex mix of hydraulic, biochemical and mechanical phenomena — that define the operational conditions and long-term performance of the engineered containment system. This statement is the perspective of a researcher who happens to be working in UK; it is not the authorised statement of any UK authority, agency, or contractor, nor is it the agreed agenda of the UK landfill research community. Note that the perspective has international relevance. In fact, advances in landfill research may now be more beneficially exploited in countries outside the EU, since EU waste management policy has shifted away from landfill.