PFAS is piling up in our trash. Can we keep it contained?
ROSEMOUNT, MINN – The white trailer blends into the winter landscape at SKB Environmental’s landfill, but inside, machinery is working to capture one of the most pervasive environmental pollutants of our time.
The landfill is the final stop for industrial waste, incinerator ash, and demolition garbage, where all of that material is mixed into massive, lined cells. Like in every landfill, moisture in the trash that’s trucked in mixes with rainfall and collects into a polluted soup known as leachate.
SKB is experimenting with filtering PFAS chemicals out of that liquid. The leachate is pumped inside the trailer, where it travels through several tanks that repeatedly froth it up. These chemicals bubble into a super-concentrated foam – much like soap would. Then that foam is siphoned off, and the cleaned water continues on to a sewage plant.