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The Cornell
Waste Management Institute
Testing Leachate
- Adapted from Waste Management
Awareness Attitudes Activities, St. Lawrence County, NY
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Back to Trash Goes To School
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- GRADE LEVELS:
9-12
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- SUBJECT AREAS:
biology, chemistry, earth science
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- CONCEPT:
Landfills, compost piles, or any other concentration of waste
produces leachate.
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- OBJECTIVE:
To realize what leachate is, where it comes from, and what its
properties are.
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- MATERIALS:
- - waste materials
- 50 ml. graduated cylinder
- water
- separatory funnel
- pH paper
- hardness paper
- turbidity tester
- bunsen burner
- sparker
- platinum wire
- test tubes
- handout: Leachate Data Table
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- KEYWORDS:
turbidity, hardness
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- BACKGROUND:
Students will know what makes up a landfill. In the lab an artificial
landfill will be set up and tested.
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- Landfills do not contain just solids,
but also liquids and gases. Leachate is liquid that may leak
from a landfill. Leachate forms from a combination of liquids
that are dumped, liquids that form through decomposition of wastes,
and precipitation filtering through the wastes.
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- In older, unlined landfills, leachate
drains into nearby streams or into the underlying groundwater.
Modern, lined landfills are designed to include systems for
leachate collection and treatment to prevent such contamination
problems.
- You may want to try to obtain a leachate
sample from a landfill, or you can create your own leachate (See
How
Do Landfills Work?, levels 7-8).
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- PROCEDURE:
- 1. Students will define leachate, pH,
turbidity, hardness, flame test.
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- 2. Students will use the following
correctly: a separatory funnel, graduated cylinder, and other
laboratory materials.
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- 3. Students will determine the pH,
turbidity, hardness and some ions in the leachate.
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- 4. Students will discuss why it is
necessary to cap landfills on the top and have a liner on the
bottom to minimize environmental problems.
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- 5. To make a landfill, add representative
samples from your lunch to the separatory funnel until it is
approximately half full. Add 50 ml. of water (this represents
rain water) and put on the top and shake for 1 minute.
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- 6. Wait ten minutes and then draw off
10 ml. of leachate into the graduated cylinder.
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- 7. Do the following tests: pH, hardness,
and turbidity. Record the results on the Leachate Data Table.
Repeat procedures over a period of days, using new samples each
time.
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- FOLLOW-UP:
- Test stream, lake, pond, and tap water,
and compare the results to those from leachate.
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- Leachate Data Table
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- Test Results
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Day 1 |
Day 2 |
Day 3 |
Day 4
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Day 5 |
| pH |
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| hardness |
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| turbidity |
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