PARENT SESSION
52 - Risk Assessment and Management
8:00 AM to 6:30 PM, Tuesday, 14 May 2002
Exhibition Area

(52-15) Development of Early Warning System for Landfill Site Management with a Battery of Biotests.

Yamada, Masato^*,1, Inoue, Yuzo¹, Kinae, Naohide², Ono, Yoshiro³, Yoshino, Hidekichi⁴, Oda, Yoshimitsu⁵, Amanuma, Kimiko¹, Sakai, Yasuyuki⁶, Ichikawa, Isamu⁷, Mohri, Shino¹, ¹ National Institute for Environmental Studies, Onogawa 16-2, Tsukuba, Ibaraki² University of Shizuoka,Tanida 52-1, Shizuoka, Shizuoka³ University of Okayama,3-1-1, Tsushima-naka, Okayama, Okayama⁴ Kanagawa Environmental Research Center, Shinomiya 1-3-39, Hiratsuka, Kanagawa⁵ Osaka Prefectual Institute of Public Health,Nakamichi 1,Higashinari-ku, Osaka, Osaka⁶ Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo4-6-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo⁷ National Institute of Public Health, 6-1, 4-Chome, Shiroganedai, Minato-ku, Tokyo

ABSTRACT- In Japan, public concern about hazardous chemicals for human health and ecosystems makes it difficult to construct and operate landfills which have potential to release such chemicals. Since waste disposal is located at the end of every material stream, huge numbers of chemicals would be contained in landfill sites. However it is not a reasonable approach to manage the every toxic chemical because much time, cost and labor are needed for detection, evaluation. Moreover, it can only partially control the total toxicity since many chemicals and their combined toxicity have been still left unidentified and evaluated. Therefore comprehensive and economically feasible methods to manage the toxic chemicals in leachate must be established. A key concept should be the precautionary principle, by which we can develop feasible methods for the risk management as much as the uncertainty of risk. A battery of biotests, which are properly modified to environmental samples, should be a useful tool for the monitoring of landfill sites under the concept of this principle. In this study, we propose a concept of the Early Warning System for advanced landfill management. To establish advantages of toxicity parameter for landfill monitoring, we carried out biotests using bacterium, cultured cell, fish and rat with several endpoints to leachate and incineration ash (landfilling waste). The results show that a proper test battery, composed by bioassays of different organisms and biological endpoints, have potential to reduce uncertainty, allowing a landfill site management. We also discuss about improvement of test methods for in situ application including some simplified and automated genotoxicity assays.

Key words: Risk management, Landfill site, Bioassay, Toxicity Monitoring