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Solid Waste ManagementThe TMC solid waste management consultancy team provides access to almost 30 years of professional expertise regarding projects involving, for instance, evaluations of landfill sites for cross-leaching and compliance with environmental laws, the chemical effects of landfill leachate on a clay liner, mechanical-biological pre-treatment of waste prior to disposal to reduce pollution and achieve job-creation in rural areas, identification of landfills for the economical extraction and conversion of methane into electrical energy and development and use of models to simulate the hydraulic behaviour of slimes dams and landfill sites. Typical services offered by the TMC consultancy team in the municipal solid waste management area are (1) evaluation of new and existing landfills, including, emissions from a landfill, such as leachate and landfill gas generation, (2) overall environmental evaluations of landfill sites, composting plants and transfer stations, (3) environmental impact assessments (EIA’s) of landfill sites, composting plants and transfer stations, (4) full spectrum of landfill design and landfill operations related services, including the design, setting up and monitoring of new landfill sites, (5) design, setting up and monitoring of new composting plants, (6) design, setting up and monitoring of new waste transfer stations, (7) development and implementation of solid waste reduction/elimination plans for municipalities with respect to specific municipal solid wastes, (8) compilation of integrated waste management plans (IWMP's), (9) status quo assessment of waste management within municipalities, (10) modelling of hydraulic behaviour and gas generation of landfill sites, as well as modelling of the financial feasibility of gas generation of landfill sites, (11) assessment of outsourcing or privatization possibilities for waste management services at a municipal, provincial and national level and (12) in line with the 2001 Polokwane Declaration, development and implementation of plans for municipalities around the country to achieve successful reduction in solid waste disposal towards zero waste, through the development of a step by step strategic implementation plan for the particular municipality, involving a first phase identification of and solutions to problems and hurdles facing the realization of these goals for solid waste management, a second phase involving the development of an appropriate strategic technological plan (which takes into consideration the findings and solutions obtained from the first phase of the project) and a third phase involving the implementation of the strategic technological plan developed in the second phase of the project. A typical service offered by the TMC consultancy team in the mining solid waste management area is the use of the SIMFLO model and computer programme to simulate the hydraulic behaviour of slimes dams and landfill sites, on the basis of a number of material characteristics, estimates of future rainfall and evaporation data, the nature of the surface area of the dam (including the vegetation on the dam, if any) and the rate at which water infiltrates the cover surface. Unlike many other simulation models, the SIMFLO simulation model does not rely on the material's field capacity to determine whether it will release water into underlying layers or not; but it rather prefers to establish this characteristic of the material based upon the results of laboratory tests, an approach which has been shown to be considerably more accurate than the use of the field capacity parameter. Furthermore, the SIMFLO model has been the focus of extensive research interest for a number of years, and it now incorporates mechanisms to simulate capillary movement of water within a slimes dam or a landfill, to simulate the observed phenomenon that such a mass often dries out over its entire depth, without any leaching being apparent. In certain instances, the above mentioned benefits would be greatly enhanced by combining the use of the SIMFLO model with the widely used SEEP/W model to simulate the hydraulic behaviour of slimes dams and landfill sites. Thus, the TMC consultancy team will employ in certain cases, when appropriate, a combination of these two models to attain a broader information base regarding the hydraulic behaviour of certain slimes dams and landfill sites.
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