Static and Seismic Stability Analysis of Malaysia’s Largest Sanitary Landfill Hamed Saiedi Department of Civil Engineering – University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada Saied Saiedi, Niraku Rosmawati Binti Ahmad Department of Civil Engineering – Petronas University of Technology, Tronoh, Ipoh, Malaysia Ho Kum Hou Tai Hoe Resources Sdn Bhd, Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Malaysia ABSTRACT The global static and seismic stability of the first phase of the largest Malaysian Sanitary Landfill in Bukit Tagar is investigated and the sensitivity of the safety factor to the waste geotechnical parameters is demonstrated. It is found that with satisfactory drainage conditions, the landfill is stable under the range of possible values of the waste’s geotechnical parameters. The landfill is not stable under a hypothetical failed drainage and extreme rainfall and proper drainage can assure satisfactory performance during earthquakes. RÉSUMÉ La stabilité globale statiques et sismiques de la première phase de la plus grande d'enfouissement sanitaire de Malaisie à Bukit Tagar est étudiée et la sensibilité du coefficient de sécurité pour les déchets des paramètres géotechniques est démontrée. Il est constaté que, avec un bon drainage, la mise en décharge est stable dans la gamme des valeurs possibles des paramètres géotechniques des déchets. La mise en décharge n'est pas stable dans un drainage hypothétique échoué et les précipitations extrêmes et le drainage peuvent assurer une performance satisfaisante au cours de tremblements de terre. 1 INTRODUCTION With a potential capacity of 120 million tonnes on an 800-ha-land, it is expected to operate for 40 years. It is Malaysia generates 18,000 tonnes of solid waste designed to receive a mix of non-hazardous commercial daily, of which 5,500 tonnes come from Klang Valley with and domestic putrescible and inert waste. Waste 8 million people out of the total population of 26 million. disposal consists of compaction before transportation to Landfills have for long been the primary system for waste the landfill, repeated compaction of the dumped waste on disposal in Malaysia and are to remain as such for the site, and application of daily soil cover at the end of each foreseeable future. Out of 177 landfills built by 1997, 90 working day. This soil cover is then removed from the were open dumpsites, 76 were controlled landfills, and 11 waste surface the following day for continued disposal. were sanitary landfills. Moving towards a modern era of Construction of the first phase of Bukit Tagar landfill, the building environmentally-friendly sanitary landfills, ‘Advance Phase’ (referred to as BTL for simplicity in this Malaysia closed 60 environmentally-hostile landfills by paper), began in 2004. The waste was disposed of from 2001 and planned to close 16 critical dumpsites near April 2005 till November 2007. As of April 2008, its water intakes in 2007 (Agamuthu 2007, MHLG 1999). closure works (consisting of cover soil and lining installation) have been completed. BTL is built adjacent The objectives of the paper are to investigate the to a hill from one side. The landfill incorporates a full static and seismic stability of the first landfill of the protective liner at the landfill base (comprised of largest Malaysian sanitary landfill site and to get insight compacted soil, geomembrane, geo-textile and a geo- into the sensitivity of the safety factor to geotechnical cushion). Leachate collection pipes have been placed parameters of the waste as well as to the water level around the base, draining water to a nearby leachate conditions. pond before being pumped to a leachate treatment plant. BTL has an area close to 4 ha with a capacity close 2 BUKIT TAGAR LANDFILL to 3.5 million tonnes of waste. It is a diamond-shaped landfill with a maximum length of 270 m, a width of 340 The largest sanitary landfill in operation in Malaysia m and a height of 50 m from the base to top. The typical is Bukit Tagar Sanitary Landfill in Hulu Selangor, 50 km base side slopes are 2.5H:1V with side lengths of 41 m. north of Kuala Lumpur. The climate is tropical A 9-m-wide berm connects the slopes. Examining the characterized by an average annual rainfall of 2.8 m. The geometry of the landfill at various sections, a critical overall rainfall occurs consistently throughout the year. cross-section is identified with a large length and small However, there are four months of higher than average protecting toe berm. Figure 1 depicts the geometry of this rainfall. Bukit Tagar landfill started operating in April section with which all stability analyses of the present 2005 and is now serving a population of 8 million in paper are performed. The landfill consultants have Kuala Lumpur City and Klang Valley. It receives an designed BTL as a USEPA level 4 sanitary landfill average of 2000 ton/day of waste (Kortegast et al. 2007). (Tonkin and Taylor Group 2010). 1719 Koerner and Soong (2000) reported their analysis of the failure of ten large solid waste landfills in various countries. They concluded that the triggering mechanism of failure was one of three liquid-related factors: leachate build-up within the waste mass, wet clay beneath the geomembrane, and excessively wet foundation soil. Two disastrous landfill failures occurred in the last 10 years in South East Asia: Leuwigajah dumpsite (Indonesia) and Payatas landfill (the Philippines). Figure 1. Cross-section of the Advance Phase of Bukit Koelsh et al. (2007) described and analyzed the failure at Tagar Landfill the Leuwigajah dumpsite in Indonesia in 2005 whereby 2.7×106 m3 of waste slid and killed 147 people. The 3 STABILITY OF LANDFILLS stability analysis suggested that both water pressure in the subsoil and a severely damaged reinforcement (due Landfill stability can be analysed in three ways: global to smouldering landfill fire) triggered the failure. Merry et stability (dealing with the total landfill mass), liner slope al. (2005) documented and briefly analyzed the failure of stability and cover soil slope stability; each of which a rapidly moving slope in Payatas Landfill in the should be performed under static and seismic conditions Philippines in 2000, where 1.2 ×106 m3 of municipal In the analysis, the stability is ensured if the factor of sanitary waste (MSW) went downhill, killing at least 230 safety FS, (defined as the ratio of resistive force to the people. Two typhoons, bringing a total precipitation of active sliding force) is greater than prescribed values 0.75 m in ten days, preceded the failure. They attributed given by proper standards. the failure to elevated pore pressures, caused by the Failures in landfill stability can be related to six main build-up of landfill gas unable to escape the highly categories (Xuede et al. 2005): 1. Leachate collection saturated waste. The tropical climatic conditions in system. 2. Final cover system. 3. Soil slope, toe, or Malaysia are similar to the South-East Asian countries base. 4. Foundation failure through subsoil, liner and reported above. The countries in the region increasingly waste. 5. Failure within waste mass. 6. Translational build larger and higher landfills making it necessary to failure along liner system at base and up through waste investigate the stability of landfills in Malaysia, where the or liner. Out of a comprehensive study into sustainability annual precipitation is even larger. of Bukit Tagar landfill as the largest Malaysian sanitary The observed performance of solid waste landfills landfill, the present paper reports only the global seismic during recent earthquakes has been encouraging in that analysis of the post-closure conditions pertaining to no global instability has occurred. However, significant items 3 to 5 of the above-mentioned list. damage in the form of geomembrane tears, cover Typical regulatory FS values are 1.3 for waste cracking, broken gas header lines, and loss of power to disposal stage and 1.5 for both pre-waste disposal and gas extraction systems was experienced at several post-closure stages for landfills in the static stage and landfills during the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Cover 1.0 for seismic design (USEPA 1993; Isenberg 2003). systems in landfills have been specifically vulnerable to In the seismic analysis, employing numerical recent earthquakes (Maugeri and Sêco e Pinto 2005). procedures such as Finite Elements Methods, Kavazanjian (1999) cites that a lined landfill subjected to distributions of stresses and deformations are sought. Of ground accelerations larger than 0.3 g suffered particular interest are deformations and displacements, significant damages, but without harmful discharge of local cracks in the various components and broken contaminants. collection pipes. To allow for proper design of landfills for earthquakes, limiting values on the permanent 5 STATIC STABILITY OF BTL displacements of various landfill components are set forth (Table 1). 5.1 Static Stability Parameters of BTL Table 1. Generic Allowable Seismic Displacements for The geotechnical parameters of interest in stability Municipal Solid Waste Landfills (Kavazanjian 1999) analysis are the shear strength parameters (cohesion c and friction angle φ) and unit weight γ for the subsoil, Component Allowable Displacement waste and cover soil. In the absence of access to design Liner System 150 to 300 mm values adopted in the original design and to testing on Cover System 300 mm to 1 m the actual waste, shear strength parameters for MSW of Waste Mass 1 m BTL were taken as φ = 28° and c = 19 kPa. These Roadways, Embankments 1 m values, taken as the same values used in stability analysis of Payatas landfill in the Philippines by Merry et Surface Water Controls 1 m al. (2005) are substantiated by the following three Gas Collection System No Limit arguments: (a) KL waste resembles that of the Philippines in composition, as can be seen in Table 2 4 EXAMPLES OF LANDFILL STABILITY FAILURES (adopted from Sivapalan et al.