Changes of a Landfill Leachate Toxicity as a Result of Treatment With Phragmites australis and Ceratophyllum demersum–A Case Study

Abstract

Most phytoremediation studies are limited to several of the most common plants and in most cases these studies are performed to a very limited extent. There are also few publications on the assessment of the effectiveness of the removal of pollutants, performed simultaneously with various plants and using physicochemical analyses as well as toxicity tests. Therefore, the conducted studies focused on assessing the removal of pollutants from leachate by physicochemical analyses and toxicity tests. The leachate was collected from four municipal waste landfills of different ages (2 non-operational facilities and 2 active). The studies were conducted for two biological systems: using emergent macrophytes (Phragmites australis) and submergent macrophytes (Ceratophyllum demersum L.). It has been observed that efficiency of biological treatment of leachates with Phragmites australis and Ceratophyllum demersum shows significant differences at lower concentrations of solutions. Even after the treatment with Phragmites australis and Ceratophyllum demersum, the analyzed leachate samples produced a toxic effect on the test organisms. A reduction or no toxicity of the leachate after the biological treatment was observed only in some cases. The observed effects of the biological leachate treatment were not conclusive. Particular attention should be paid to the persistent toxicity, which can pose a real threat to the environment when discharging leachates after treatment.

Enhanced leachate phytodetoxification test combined with plants and rhizobacteria bioaugmentation

“…Bioassay methods have extensively tested the toxicity of landfill leachate [ 18 ]. Toxicity tests are used to measure the number of substances in which an organism is exposed to before side effects from landfill leachate occur [ 133 , 141 ]. Moreover, toxicity testing using bioassays can represent chronic or acute exposure [ 2 ].…”

Assessing the Impact of a Hydropower Plant on Changes in the Properties of the Sediment of the Bystrzyca River in Poland

“…The content of metals in the sediments was assessed in terms of their potential toxicity to aquatic organisms, using the ecotoxicological method (MacDonald et al, 2000;Tomić et al, 2019;Jaskuła et al, 2021;Szymańska-Pulikowska and Wdowczyk, 2021). The method distinguishes three levels of toxicity characteristics:…”

Analysis of the Bacterial Biocenosis of Activated Sludge Treated with Leachate from Municipal Landfills

“…The study included evaluation of the effectiveness of leachate treatment by P. australis and C. demersum using physicochemical analyses and toxicity tests. The exact conditions of the conducted experiment were presented in an earlier publication [30].…”

“…After treatment with P. australis a slight decrease of TU value was observed, while after treatment with C. demersum its slight increase was observed. The observed increase could be due to the increased organic matter content, which could lead to acute stress and toxic reactions in the test organisms [30,62].…”

“…The exact conditions of the experiment conducted on the effectiveness of leachate treatment by P. australis and C. demersum are presented in an earlier publication [30].…”