A novel vegetated three-layer landfill cover system using recycled construction wastes without geomembrane

To promote environmental protection and sustainability, the use of plants and recycled wastes in geotechnical construction such as landfill covers is recommended. A landfill cover field test was conducted at the Shenzhen Xiaping landfill site, located in a humid climatic region of China. The main objective was to validate the field performance of a novel vegetated three-layer landfill cover system using recycled construction waste without the need of geomembrane. Unsieved completely decomposed granite and coarsely crushed concrete was used for the top and intermediate layers while sieved completely decomposed granite was used as the lowest layer. One section was transplanted with Bermuda grass while the other section was left bare. To assess the landfill cover performance, pore-water pressure, volumetric water content, percolation, and atmospheric parameters were measured for a period of 13 months under natural climatic conditions. The cumulative rainfall depth was about 2950 mm over the entire monitoring period. During rainfall, the presence of grass led to lower pore-water pressure (or higher suction) and volumetric water content in the three-layer landfill cover system. At the end of monitoring, the cumulative percolation was about 27 and 20 mm for the bare and grass-covered landfill covers, respectively. It is evident that the vegetated three-layer landfill cover system using recycled concrete without geomembrane can be effective in minimizing percolation in humid climates.