THE ASSESSMENT OF AIR AND WATER QUALITY OF SHARRA LANDFILL

The waste disposal site of Sharra represents the first landfill for the management of solid wastes in Albania designed in accordance to the European Union standards for the management and administration of solid wastes. The objective of this study was to realize a general assessment of the environmental state in the areas nearby Sharra, after the implementation of the landfill as a remediation method. Water and air samples have been periodically collected and analyzed before and after the remediation of the waste disposal site of Sharra, respectively on the years 2008 and 2009. Results show that the measured indicators used to assess the quality of air such as; solid particles, PM10, NO2, H2S, CH4 reach the respective average values of 372 μg m-3, 216 μg m-3, 97 μg m-3, 0.8 μg m-3, 350 μg m-3 in 2008 and 72 μg m-3, 30 μg m-3, 29 μg m-3, 0.22 μg m-3, 41 μg m-3, in the year 2009. Before the remediation, except H2S the concentrations of all the other components in air exceed the Albanian and European Union limits whereas in 2009 these values have dropped under the mentioned limits. The concentration of heavy metals (mg L-1) in the surface waters exceeds the allowed limits for Ni (0.002-0.08), Mn (0.6), Cr (0.19-0.33) and Fe (0.2-3.5). As regards to the quality of surface water; some of the indicators such as EC, Cl-, NO2- resulted to surpass the above mentioned limits even after the implementation of the landfill. Based on the obtained results, further actions should be considered to be carried out in order to assure the collection and remediation of the landfill leaching prior they join the Erzeni River.