Abstract
This study investigates emissions from landfills and the effect these emissions may have on human health. Landfill emissions contain methane, carbon dioxide, malodour compounds, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). VOCs comprise a specific class of air pollutants that are potentially hazardous not only to the environment but also to human health. Landfill workers along with residents living in close proximity to the landfill are at risk of inhaling ambient VOCs, which potentially may cause acute or chronic illness. VOCs can have a negative effect on human health. For example, benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes, which together form BTEX, are individually and collectively human carcinogens, including at low concentrations. BTEX are the main compounds of VOCs that can be identified and quantified in the landfill biogas. The main objective of this paper is to estimate the concentration of BTEX and their risk assessment on human health. An emitted biogas was collected from the surface of a passive methane oxidising bio-cover (PMOB) installed in Saint Nicephore (Quebec, Canada) landfill since 2006. The sampling period was taken place from June to September where the temperature is in the range of 16 to 30 °C approximately. The biogas collected was treated in the laboratory the same day. A gas chromatograph coupled with a mass spectrometer is used to identify and quantify BTEX compounds. The concentrations of BTEX are in the range of below the limit of detection (BLD) to 3.76 mg m
-3
. The intake rate (IR) values ranged from 0.27 to 0.39 mg/kg-day, while the estimated values of the cancer risk directly attributable to the landfill’s VOCs ranged from 0.007 to 0.010.