Submitted by: Mark Gonzaga, R06521128

Presenter:
Rudolph Bonaparte
Chairman and Senior Principal
Geosyntec Consultants, Inc.

Topic: Geotechnical Stability of Waste Fills

 Main objective
Landfills are important structures to man in a consumerist era: with the human population
constantly increasing and while society is still in the process of moving away from generating
rubbish that can outlive man for several generations, more and more landfills will need to be
built. Therefore, there is a need to revisit the current design guidelines and to recapitulate the
lessons learned from failure cases of landfills over the last few decades, to ensure a design that
will last more than a lifetime.
 Methodology
A series of case studies in the U.S. were presented to highlight the special considerations in
designing of landfills as compared to other common geotechnical projects. In each case failure
case, the failure mechanism, physical evidence of the onset of failure, and the cause(s) of failure
were identified, as well as the lessons learned.

 Important Findings
A lot of the failure cases for MSW landfills involved negligence and lapse of judgment. Of
importance is the interface friction between soil and geosynthetics or between geosynthetics,
which tend to be weak, and were overlooked in the design process. Other failure mechanisms
include foundation failure and instability due to positive pore water pressure buildup.

 Summary/Conclusions
Despite the insights that can be derived from several case studies, landfill failures still occur,
even to this day. The urgency cannot be understated; the number stands at more than one failure
per year on average. Therefore, the design process must be tackled on all perspectives possible.
Factors such as site conditions, waste properties, and operating conditions need to be considered
on top of the system stability.

 Reflection
Indeed, landfills are a special kind of geotechnical structure that needs specialized knowledge and
experience. The fact that waste fill failures continue to occur means there is a need to strongly
enforce what is already established in the design process of landfills. The number of failure cases
in the U.S. alone, even in recent years, is staggering. MSW landfill failures not only endanger
human lives, but are also detrimental to the environment, and that is why the importance of
considering factors such as interface strength, foundation stability, waste properties, and
operation conditions must be emphasized. Dr. Bonaparte did a great job in reminding us that the
engineers’ purpose is to improve human lives, and not compromise it.