Cottonmount Landfill, United Kingdom

The Cottonmount Landﬁll Site is located in Mallusk, Antrim County in Northern Ireland, just outside Belfast. The site is within Cottonmount Quarry, a working hard rock quarry, which receives municipal waste from Belfast City. WALO was appointed to construct three landfill cells using its Dense Asphaltic Concrete (DAC).

Case Study Description

Given the proximity of the site to residential areas and to underground aquifers, it was of paramount importance that the landfill cells were constructed with an extremely strong lining that would remain impermeable to leachate or methane from the waste. The works had to be undertaken during extremely challenging weather conditions in the depths of winter. WALO’s DAC is highly robust and impermeable and therefore is ideal for complete containment of all materials that need to be impounded, such as landﬁll. It is also very quick to lay, making it the perfect solution for a project like this which had to be carried out within a limited time frame in very wintry conditions.

WALO constructed the cells as part of a composite lining system of some 17,800m2 using DAC formulated in the company’s Zurich laboratory to a design mix unique to the project. The lining system comprised a 300mm mineral attenuation layer; 200mm sub-base material layer; 60mm asphaltic binder layer, 80mm dense asphaltic concrete layer and a mastic seal coat to the base, side slopes and bund areas. The works involved the placing of asphalt by paver and winch on a 40m slope. Once the lining was completed, a 300mm thick layer of leachate drainage stone was applied to the whole area.