While PFAS compounds have been used in industry since the 1940s, and are nearly ubiquitous in modern American life, it has only been in the past few years that health and environmental impacts have become a public concern. Numerous state legislatures have either passed or are considering limitations on PFAS compounds as is the US EPA. PFAS today is not a technical/scientific issue, but rather a political/emotional issue. Long term, the correct solution is to eliminate or minimize the manufacture and use of PFAS, but there are large volumes of PFAS containing materials that will be in the waste stream for decades to come and will be present in landfill leachate for even longer.

This presentation will focus on how landfills, which do not generate PFAS but sequester a large percentage of the PFAS that enters the landfill, can increase the sequestration rate and remove additional PFAS from the environment. Until commercially viable destruction technologies become widely available, lined Subtitle-D landfills are the best and only way to end the PFAS cycle and isolate these forever compounds from people, and the environment.

SWANA CEUs: .25