Enormous amounts of solid waste are generated every year in the United States an

d other
industrialized countries. These waste materials, in general, can be classi?ed in
to four major
categories: (1) municipal waste, (2) industrial waste, (3) hazardous waste, and
(4) lowlevel
radioactive
waste.
Table
17.1 lists the waste
material generated in 1984 in the United
States
in these four categories
(Koerner,
1994).
The waste materials generally are placed in land?lls. The land?ll materials inte
ract
with moisture received from rainfall and snow to form a liquid called leachate.
The chemical
composition of leachates varies
widely,
depending on the waste material involved.
Leachates are a main source of groundwater pollution; therefore, they must be co
ntained
properly in all land?lls, surface impoundments, and waste piles within some type
of liner
system. In the following sections of this chapter, various types of liner system
s and the
materials used in them are discussed.
Land?ll Liners Overview
Until about 1982, the predominant liner material used in land?lls was clay. Prop
er clay liners
have a hydraulic conductivity of about 10
7
cm/sec or less. In 1984, the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency s minimum technological requirements for hazardous-waste land?ll
design
and construction were introduced by the U.S. Congress in Hazardous and Solid Was
te amendments.
In these amendments,
Congress stipulated that all new land?lls should have double
liners and systems for leachate collection and removal.
Compaction of Clay Soil for Clay Liner Construction
It was shown in Chapter 6 (Section 6.5) that, when a clay is compacted at a lowe
r moisture
content,
it possesses a ?occulent structure. Approximately at the optimum moisture
content of compaction, the clay particles have a lower degree of ?occulation. A
further
increase in the moisture content at compaction provides a greater degree of part
icle orientation;
however,
the dry unit weight decreases, because the added water dilutes the concentration
of soil solids per unit volume.
Figure 17.1 shows the results of laboratory compaction tests on a clay soil as w
ell as
the variation of hydraulic conductivity on the compacted clay specimens. From th
e laboratory
test results shown,
the following observations can be made:

1. For a given compaction effort, the hydraulic conductivity, k, decreases with

the
increase in molding moisture content, reaching a minimum value at about the
optimum moisture content (that is, approximately where the soil has a higher uni
t
weight with the clay particles having a lower degree of ?occulation). Beyond the
optimum moisture content, the hydraulic conductivity increases slightly.
2. For similar compaction effort and dry unit weight, a soil will have a lower h
ydraulic
conductivity when it is compacted on the wet side of the optimum moisture conten
t.
Benson and Daniel (1990) conducted laboratory compaction tests by varying
the size of clods of moist clayey soil. These tests show that, for similar compa
ction
effort and molding moisture content, the magnitude of k decreases with the decre
ase in
clod size.
In some compaction work in clayey soils, the compaction must be done in a manner
so that a certain speci?ed upper level of hydraulic conductivity of the soil is
achieved.
Examples of such works are compaction of the core of an earth dam and installati
on of clay
liners in solid-waste disposal sites.
To prevent groundwater pollution from leachates generated from solid-waste dispo
sal
sites,
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires that clay liners have
a hydraulic conductivity of 10
7
cm/sec or less. To achieve this value, the contractor must
ensure that the soil meets the following criteria (Environmental Protection Agen
cy, 1989):
1. The soil should have at least 20% ?nes (?ne silt and clay-sized particles).
2. The plasticity index (PI) should be greater than 10. Soils that have a PI gre
ater than
about 30 are dif?cult to work with in the ?eld.
3. The soil should not include more than 10% gravel-sized particles.
4. The soil should not contain any particles or chunks of rock that are larger t
han 25 to
50 mm (1 to 2 in.).
In many instances, the soil found at the construction site may be somewhat nonplastic. Such soil may be blended with imported clay minerals (like sodium bento
nite) to