Concentration and toxicological study on sanitary landfill gases at drilling point closed cell

Malaysia nowadays like all developing countries is facing an increase in the generation of municipal solid waste and the wastes are disposing at the landfill site. Poorly managed landfill creates emission of harmful gases to the environment and threatens public health. Methane and carbon dioxide are the major landfill gases that have been released to the environment. The main objectives of this study are to identify the compositions landfill gases and check their concentration before obtain human health risk assessment of the landfill. The gas collected at the landfill site was analyzed by using two methods of gas chromatography which are In-House Method (GC-MSD) and In-House Method-TPH (GS-MSD) in order to identify the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) gases. From the study, out of 37 components of landfill gases, 2-methylpentane and benzene have the highest concentration with 5337 mg/m³ and 1191.5 mg/m³, respectively. Comparison of exposure concentration with NIOSH standards shows that 1,1-dichloroethene, methylene chloride (DCM), 2-nitropropane, trichloroethane (vinyl chloride), 1,3-dichloropropane, and trans-1,4-dichloro-2-butene are carcinogen. The knowledge of these concentrations is necessary to formulate air pollution control strategies and to avoid undesirable health impact due to exposure of VOCs gases at landfill.