Control and stability features for mineral-industrial waste landfill in Italy

This paper deals with a complex geometry and local problems inherent to a landfill located in a mountainous area near Bergamo (Northern Italy). The stored materials are made up of old ore dressing tailings and recent metallurgical slag and the landfill is exploited in a narrow mountainous valet. These features have, in recent years, led to the necessity of carrying out an assessment of the stability in order to allow the filling to continue and an environmental reclamation to be performed. The most important aspects are linked to the old toe of the landfill (low resistance and high deformability) and to the control of the surface water flow. More detailed investigations have also involved the characterisation of the interfaces between the wastes and the geosynthetics installed in the lining systems and the geotechnical parameters of the waste itself. The results of three years of site observations are reported together with a description of the monitoring system equipment.