In the 1960s, the percentage of waste that ended up in landfills was about 94%. Today, this number has reduced to 50% thanks to communication programs focused on recycling and reuse. Despite this reduction, the overall space available for landfills and waste management remains at a premium. Municipal governments, and waste management firms are constrained, much like the space, by budgets, and landfill area. No one wants to waste precious land resources in holding garbage.
This means a clever use of the existing space, and improved space efficiency of landfill sites. Enter the concept of vertical expansion of landfill sites. The key advantage of these types of landfills is their ability to store large quantities of waste in a relatively small land area.
Geogrids, often overlooked but crucial in the construction of efficient landfills, play a significant role. In this blog, we explore the use of geogrids in vertical landfills, their benefits, and why Strata Global has been a leader in optimising landfills and waste management projects, around the world.
As the name suggests, vertical expansion of landfills involves creating a new landfill above the existing site. In simpler terms, it’s about expanding the landfill area within the existing land. These landfills, also known as piggyback landfills, have gained popularity due to their ability to maximise waste storage within the permitted land area. However, it’s crucial to remember that the key to their success is maintaining existing sites to maximise their utilisation. This is particularly important as the load-bearing capacity decreases with the addition of vertical floors in the landfill site. Factors such as slope stability, foundation support, leachate installation, waste management, and proper drainage installation need to be carefully considered.
Various techniques, each tailored to the specific site conditions and the layout design of the existing landfill structure, can achieve vertical expansion of landfills. These techniques, including perimeter implementation, wall retention, and MSE perimeter berms, aim to maximise the airspace and ensure efficient waste storage.
Maximising airspace often involves traditional methods of stabilising the soil with concrete. However, with increasing innovations, traditional methods of concrete have been successfully replaced with geosynthetic materials like geogrids. This geomaterial is used to design the MSE berms for the soil slope to compact the soil and act as a barrier.
Although geosynthetic materials are taking over the construction industry’s current scenario, they are the hidden heroes of landfill construction. Typically, a geogrid is not considered for the layers of a landfill in a conventional design of an old or existing site. At Strata Global, we deploy a geogrid layer to confine the soil cover layer, and provide it structural stability. With geogrids, the soil is reinforced, as a way of addressing veneer stability. This feature in design is a newer method of improving the structural integrity of the site, allowing for more waste to be added vertically.
The second usage is through mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) berms, which is the most essential aspect of landfill vertical expansion. This berm creates additional capacity on top of the existing site itself with a near vertical wall. The geogrid material is added to the retaining walls to create confinement, while providing vertical support to the structure. With vertical landfills, a berm works to create depth and elevation which adds more volume to the airspace allowing for expansion of the cells within the same area. By using geogrids to stabilize the berm, we ensure that the soil is stabilized so that it can withstand pressure from the newer waste, and the soil below doesn’t move, or get deformed with the additional pressure. With most older sites, the greater risk after gas leaks, and leachate leaks is from the waste site collapsing –this could mean a landfill landslide –which is quite dangerous. Therefore, depending on the site requirements, the berm would undergo reinforcement either laterally, by layering geogrids within the berm layers, or vertically. Geogrids prevent slippage of internal layers, by confining materials. This property means that the soil stays in place, and doesn’t move relatively when the site experiences higher pressure and load.
Geogrids have significantly made an impact on the construction industry. It is an economical, sustainable and readily available material. There are several other advantages that geogrids offer for landfill construction:
Client: Modern landfill of Model City
Location: New York, USA
Product used: StrataGrid
About the project:
A huge challenge was encountered in the Modern landfill of Model City. A high-pressure gas lining was running through this landfill site. The original plan was to move the gas line to meet the landfill capacity; however, this plan was quite expensive and time-consuming. Hence, it was decided that another option should be considered.
Strata Global suggested using StrataGrid geogrids, as soil reinforcement. For primary reinforcement and strengthening of the soil, StrataGrid 350 and 500 were used. For secondary reinforcement, a lighter-weight StrataGrid 150 was used. This helped lift the primary reinforcement. With careful installation of multiple geogrids and soil layers, Mechanically Stabilised Earth (MSE) berms were constructed. Due to this, the capacity of the existing landfill site was also maintained without the requirement to shift the high-pressure gas line. This solution also resulted in being cost-effective and highly efficient.
Client: Vapo Green Enviro Limited
Location: Vapi, Gujarat, India
Product used: StrataGrid
Application: Vertical expansion of existing cell for a landfill
About the project:
Vapo Green Enviro Limited, a landfill situated in Vapi, Gujarat, faced a shortage of storage space. Due to the unavailability of space and increasing cost concerns, horizontal expansion of the landfill was quite impossible.
Strata Global came in with an innovative solution. We suggested using the airspace instead of landscape and constructing a vertical landfill. Theoretically the idea seemed to highly successful, however there were 3 challenges:
These problems were successfully tackled by Strata Global with their innovative geo-synthetic product StrataGrid. The inner slope was reinforced by StrataGrid along with two major systems StrataSlope and StrataBlock.
StrataGrid acted as a wrap around the soil bags, preventing leachate problem and potential leakage. Vapi Green Enviro Limited was highly satisfied with this landmark solution provided by StrataGlobal.
In a nutshell, geogrids are the backbone of the construction industry. They efficiently provide support, stability and durability to the structure. They play a significant role in constructing vertical landfills. Geogrids are typically used in constructing the retaining walls that provide undue support to the vertical landfill structure. These landfills utilise the airspace instead of landscape, creating more capacity within the same land area. To keep the leachate and harmful contaminants within the premises.
Strata Global’s StrataGrid geogrid has responsibly made so many vertical landfill projects successful all over the globe. With successful implementation of their geogrids and plans to renovate existing landfills. Strata has proved that we are not just a geosystem service provider, but also a visionary in challenging the existing methods and replacing them with highly successful, efficient and cost-effective solutions.
To know more about the services provided by Strata Global or to get expert advice from their experts, get in touch with us!
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Director, President – Glen Raven Technical Fabrics
Strata/Glen Raven tenure: 10 years/28 years
Total industry experience: 35 years
MBA – Wake Forest University
Directs the strategic direction of Glen Raven’s automotive, protective apparel, military, geogrid, outdoor and logistic businesses.
Director, General Manager, Strata Inc.
Strata/Strata Inc. tenure: 3 years/14 years
Total industry experience: 25 years
MBA – Georgia State University
Led the integration of Strata Inc. business operations into the headquarters of GRTF and transition from USA based to India based manufacturing.
Director
Strata tenure: 17 years
Total industry experience: 47 years
CA – ICA
Played a key role in the establishment of Strata’s India operations. Provides vision for product innovation and leveraging new technology trends.
Global Technical Sales Director
Strata tenure: 7 years
Total industry experience: 32 years
Civil & Geotechnical Engineer (First class)
Provides highly technical and innovative civil engineering solutions in India and around the world. Responsible for the design and execution of large-scale geotechnical projects around the world including Australia, Asia, Europe, Africa, Middle East, and South America.
CTO – Chief Technology Officer
Strata tenure: 9 years
Total industry experience: 48 years
BTech (Hons), MTech (Civil) Both IIT Bombay, DMS (Bombay University), FIE, FIGS, Chartered Engineer
Streamlines the designs of Geosynthetics and has brought innovation in geogrid and geocell design application.
COO – Projects and Sales
Strata tenure: 13 years
Total industry experience: 24 years
MBA – University of Gujarat
Leads the monetization of products and solutions while ensuring highest execution quality and project profitability.
COO – Technical Textiles
Strata tenure: 13 years
Total industry experience: 33 years
BE (Mechanical) – Nagpur University
Drives excellence in process design, product features and cost effectiveness in production.
CFO – Chief Financial Officer
Strata tenure: 8 years
Total industry experience: 35 years
CA – ICA, ICWA – ICWAI
Leads the finance, accounting, taxation, commercial, legal and IT functions and assisting on all strategic and operational matters.
CDO – Chief Development Officer
Strata tenure: 10 years
Total industry experience: 13 years
MBA – ISB, Hyderabad
Leads diversification of the product portfolio, monetizing the new products and ensuring successful sustained financial growth of the company top line.
CEO – Chief Executive Officer
Strata tenure: 14 years
Total industry experience: 42 years
B Tech (Chemical) – IIT Delhi
Leads day-to-day business operations of the company with focus on capacity expansion, product and process improvement.
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