The technologies developed for treating leachate have evolved to achieve compliance with increasingly strict discharge consent limits.
Landfills are lined with clay and flexible synthetic membranes intended to prevent leachate escaping and contaminating the groundwater.
At that time, the landfill site at Buckden in Cambridgeshire was generating leachate containing significant concentrations of herbicides, mecoprop and isoproturon.
Rubbish dumps create a strong chemical cocktail called leachate.
The report recommends a more detailed sampling and monitoring program and checks that discharged leachate is below recommended levels.