Concentration and Toxicological Study on Sanitary Landfill Gases at Drilling Point Closed Cell Nadia Kamarrudin 1 , Nurul Hikmah Zulkafli 1 , Arman Sikirman 1 , Nurfarah Mastura Mahayuddin 1 , Bryan Albert Sigau 1 ,Ku Halim Ku Hamid 1 and Suffiyana Akhbar 1 1 Fakulti Kejuruteraan Kimia, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia Abstract- Malaysia nowadays like all developing countries is facing an increase in the generation of municipal solid waste and the wastes are disposing at the landfill site. Poorly managed landfill creates emission of harmful gases to the environment and threatens public health. Methane and carbon dioxide are the major landfill gases that have been released to the environment. The main objectives of this study are to identify the compositions landfill gases and check their concentration before obtain human health risk assessment of the landfill. The gas collected at the landfill site was analyzed by using two methods of gas chromatography which are In- House Method (GC-MSD) and In-House Method-TPH (GS- MSD) in order to identify the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) gases. From the study, out of 37 components of landfill gases, 2-methylpentane and benzene have the highest concentration with 5337 mg/m 3 and 1191.5 mg/m 3 , respectively. Comparison of exposure concentration with NIOSH standards shows that 1,1-dichloroethene, methylene chloride (DCM), 2-nitropropane, trichloroethane (vinyl chloride), 1,3-dichloropropane, and trans-1,4-dichloro-2- butene are carcinogen. The knowledge of these concentrations is necessary to formulate air pollution control strategies and to avoid undesirable health impact due to exposure of VOCs gases at landfill. Keywords:Sanitary Landfill; Landfill Gas; Landfill Issues; Concentration; Toxicology Pattern; Risk Assessment I. INTRODUCTION As a developing country, Malaysia is facing the increase of waste and though landfilling is one of the ways to dispose it, the effects of landfilling results in serious environmental and human health. Landfill or open dumping has no proper controlled tipping to cover the waste and to treat the by-products from the landfill. Thus, sanitary landfill has been taken as a method to dispose wastes where it decomposes the waste biologically, chemically, and physically. In general, the per capita generation rate is about 1 kg/day. Malaysian solid wastes contain very high organic waste and consequently high moisture content and bulk density above 200 kg/m 3 [1]. That makes Malaysian generates 16,000 tonnes of domestic waste per day and the amount per capita is varies from 0.45 to 1.44 kg/day depending on the economic status of the area. When municipal solid waste (MSW) is buried at a landfill, an aerobic process will take place and eventually produce landfill gas (LFG), which consists of methane (CH 4 ), carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and other gases. These gases are greenhouse gases which are the main contributor to global warming. As reported, CH 4 is 23 times more harmful than CO 2 . Migration of these gases into surrounding area can cause harm to vegetation and explosion. The generation of LFG from MSW depends on the composition of waste, age and type of landfill [1]. Other landfill gases that produce from landfill are carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen (H 2 ), oxygen (O 2 ), nitrogen (N 2 ), hydrogen sulfide (H 2 S), and trace amount of non-methane organic compound (NMOC) in varying proportion [2,3]. One of the NMOC is volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which are benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (m, p, o-xylene) (BTEX) which are classified as hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) [2,4,5]. Exposure to HAPs can cause a variety of health problems such as cancerous illnesses, respiratory irritation, and central nervous system damage [2,6]. The aim of this study is to identify all the gases produce in sanitary landfill and classify them as harmful or safe gases to human and environment. This research will study the effect of the gases and find the suitable way to overcome the problem occur. The identification of gases is based on the concentration and toxicology patern of each gas analyzed. II. LITERATURE REVIEW According to Ministry of Housing and Local Government Malaysia [7], it is estimated that 78% of the landfills in Peninsular Malaysia will be full for closure in near future. Solid waste management (SWM) emerged in late 1970s due to expansion of population. It is estimated that 95% of the MSW have gone for landfilling and only 5% are recycled. MSW generation has reached 1.3 kg/cap/day. On average, it composes of 40% organic waste, 14% paper, 15% plastics and others [8]. Landfilling practice in Malaysia is far from environmentally sounded. Among 230 landfills, only 10% are equipped with leachate treatment and gas venting facility while 51% are open dumpsites [8,9]. Ministry of Housing and Local Government Malaysia[7] states that until June 2012, the landfill exist in Malaysia was 296 where only 165 fully operated and other already stop their operation. From all existed landfill only about 8 landfills are managed efficiently (sanitary landfill) as shown in Table I. 978-1-4673-5968-9/13/$31.00 ©2013 IEEE 2013 IEEE Business Engineering and Industrial Applications Colloquium (BEIAC) 333