Australian local council landfill sites and privately owned hazardous liquid waste management companies must safely and effectively manage leachate and other hazardous liquid waste to meet organisational objectives, remain compliant and protect the surrounding environment and communities.
Seasonal impacts, discharge capabilities, rainfall, phenomena such as La Niña, as well as operational levels, strict state legislation, limited physical space for water storage, and proximity to flora and fauna and communities can all intensify the need for effective management of water levels.
The ramifications of ineffective water management or inaction can be catastrophic and include expensive fines, unsafe and illegal discharges resulting in devastating environmental incidents, operational shutdown, and extreme health and safety hazards for nearby communities as well as flora and fauna.
The Minetek solution.
Minetek Water offer a proven water management solution for industrial and municipal sites in need of cost-effective ad hoc or long-term wastewater or leachate management.
Minetek’s water evaporation technology mechanically enhances the naturally occurring evaporation process by pumping a high volume of water at high pressure through specially configured low fouling nozzles. These nozzles atomize the water into tiny droplets, forcing a percentage of the water into the atmosphere to evaporate, whilst the remaining water as well as any solids, salts, heavy metals, or contaminants simply fall back into the water source (pond or dam).
Proven to process water with high Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) and high Total Suspended Solids (TSS) and with the unique ability to process solids up to 4.0mm in diameter and evaporate water with a pH level ranging from 1.8 to 14+, Minetek Water Evaporator’s are an extremely viable solution for contaminated and even toxic leachate and hazardous liquid waste management.
Alternative solutions for leachate and other hazardous liquid waste management.
Environmental Engineers, Landfill Engineers, Operations Managers, Maintenance Managers, Technical Services Managers, Processing Managers, and personnel in similar or equivalent roles are often tasked with the complex task of finding a solution that can achieve safe, compliant, and effective water balance mitigation for industrial and municipal sites storing leachate or other hazardous liquid waste.
The most common leachate and hazardous liquid waste management methods include pumping/water transfer, trucking/haulage, standard water treatment, sprinklers/irrigators, and new ponds/dams.
You can see a detailed price and performance comparison between Minetek’s solution and alternative water management solutions below:
Water management comparison chart
| Technique | Minetek Water evaporation | Standard water treatment | Sprinklers/ irrigator | New dams/ ponds | Trucking/ haulage | Pumping/ water transfer |
| Volume | 1 meg/day evaporated | 1 meg/day treated | Highly variable | Scalable, variable due to size & real estate | 1 meg/ day ave. 20 truck loads | Scalable & variable due to costs |
| Approximate capex | $220,000 | $1,000,000 | Typically low tech, low cost depending on scale | Raising/new dams $25,000,000 | $300,000 | Hundreds of thousands – millions of $ depending on size |
| Opex | $0.20/m³ evaporated | $2.00/m³ evaporated | Highly variable | Very minimal | $5,000/meg | Low |
| Operator required | No, system is automated | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Mobility | Yes, system can be relocated easil | Typically fixed installations | Somewhat depending on footprint | No | Yes | No |
| Ability to manage change in water quality input | Yes | Typically no | No | Yes, if its lined | Yes | Yes, but depends on water quality |
| Lead time | Fast deployment 6-8 weeks | 3-4 months | Low tech, typically available | 6-24 months | Fast deployment, slow to operate & remove water | 3-6 months |
| Maintenance | Low maintenance | Constant cleaning & part replacements | High maintenance, nozzle blocking & corrosion | Low unless maintenance, unless lift is required or non-compliance | Medium | Medium – high |
| Infrastructure | Minimal | Minimal | Significant; creates groundwater issues & stability issues because evaporation is so low (4%) | Large – very large | None | Large |
Frequently asked questions.
Who will manage installation?
Minetek offer comprehensive installation manuals and support from a designated project manager should your organisation like to manage installation internally. Alternatively, Minetek can arrange a plug and play system package solution including installation at an additional cost.
What if our pond size is too small?
Where there is a major need for water management, Minetek haven’t yet encountered a pond too small to viably utilise our water management technology. However, if you are concerned, rest assured that Minetek’s free and comprehensive site-specific evaporation efficiency modelling will clearly establish the suitability, operational and capital expenditures, and expected results of a Minetek water management solution installed at your site.
How do we control plume drift from going out of bounds?
We recommend pairing your Minetek Evaporator with Minetek’s Environmental Management System (EMS), this system allows the Evaporator to be governed by a weather station that controls and optimises operation according to customisable parameters including sun-up/down times, relative wind speed and direction, humidity, temperature, system water flow, and pressure.
In practice, this means that the evaporator will autonomously respond to changes in environmental conditions in real time and automatically switch off to prevent plume drifting out of bounds, giving you and your team peace of mind that plume will always remain within designated areas.
How quickly can we get Minetek Water Evaporators on site?
From our initial site visit or engagement for a project overview and receipt of a purchase order, our standard time frame for evaporator dispatch is between 2 – 8 weeks. This includes design, engineering, and manufacturing.,
Will mechanical evaporation enhance the smell of the leachate?
Mechanical evaporation does not increase the smell of leachate or other liquid waste. As evaporation is a natural process and Minetek Water Evaporators simply enhance this process, you should not expect any increased smell onsite.
Minetek Water Evaporators for leachate and hazardous liquid waste management in action.
A landfill case study.
Our landfill site client is an Australian waste management and disposal centre transforming landfill consisting of construction and demolition waste, contaminated and clean soils, as well as a range of other construction and agricultural waste into pristine native parklands and sporting facilities for the community.
At our client’s site, a large leachate dam needed to be filled in, in order for the site to be rehabilitated. Our client had a goal to remove 63 million litres of water as soon as possible from their site and allowed a period of 12–18 months for the project.
Minetek supplied the site with 1 x heavy duty galvanised 200/100 Land Based Water Evaporator complete with a Minetek control board, angle adjuster, pump, pipework and cabling all supplied to site.
Minetek additionally had a commissioning team onsite to ensure operation was to standard and meeting the expectations of the client.
Operating at an evaporation efficiency percentage of 52%, this single Minetek Water Evaporator was able to evaporate a staggering 280,800 litres of water from the site per 12-hour-day and achieved our client’s goal in just 9 months.
A waste management case study.
Our client is a leader in liquid and solid hazardous waste management and organics recycling, primarily serving companies involved in coal seam gas production and related industries.
Due to several factors including high demand for our client’s services and high rainfall, the various water storage dams at our client’s facility were reaching capacity, limiting the amount of new business (and new waste) the site could take on.
The company was in urgent need of an effective water balance mitigation solution that could continually reduce the water levels in their dams and allow them to take on more work. The facility had a hefty goal to evaporate 200,000 litres per day from the site to keep dam levels down.
Minetek supplied the facility with 1 x 200E Floating Water Evaporator. Operating at an evaporation efficiency percentage of 51%, this single evaporator can evaporate 264,384 litres of water per 12-hour-day, that’s in excess of 60,000 litres more than our clients daily evaporation goal.
Minetek’s Water Solutions.
Minetek is a global leader, providing the world’s most comprehensive and cost-effective water management solution.
To find out more about Minetek Water Evaporators for leachate and hazardous waste management applications, download our Ebook ‘Water Evaporation Technology for municipal and industrial applications’ or reach out for a free site-specific evaporation efficiency model to understand how a Minetek Water Evaporator could fit into your leachate or waste management plan.
