Suitability of clay beds for storage of industrial solid wastes.

The disposal of industrial wastes in carefully designed land disposal sites is a practical solution. Properly designed landfills can provide barriers which are passive on character and are not dependant on active, energy consuming systems. The rate of transport away from a disposal site can be controlled so that no unacceptable environmental insult will occur. The disposal problem of solid wastes or residuals is compounded by (a) increasing magnitude of waste generated each year; (b) variety of materials that become refuse; (c) vast array of chemicals that may eventually leak from containers and burial sites; (d) difficulty of adequately sequestering waste to inhibit leaching; (e) difficulty of monitoring landfill sites for leachates; (f) variability of soils and their sorption capacities for leachates; (g) variability of permeability od soils; and (h) reluctance of some dischargers to spend more money on materials no longer useful. The massive clay beds of Texas offer characteristics which are excellent for waste containment and ultimate disposal. Clays have the capacity to remove any residuals by sorption (either ion exchange or adsorption), by neutralization and by by retention of precipitates. Clay masses may exhibit considerable buffering characteristics. Furthermore, some residuals (cyanide, for example) can be biologically degraded by soil bacteria. If, in addition, a landfill is designed to minimize the movement of soil moisture, the driving force for the transport of wastes may be reduced to insignificant levels. These machanisms for retaining residuals combine to make clay masses effective barriers.