Fate and Transport of Coronavirus Surrogate through Compacted Clays for Pathogenic Waste Disposal

An increased pathogenic waste post-COVID-19pandemic forced policymakersto treat biomedical waste (BMW) similar to municipal solid waste (MSW)to dispose into dumpsites and MSW landfills across the globe. Thegranular bentonite of geosynthetic clay liners (GCLs) does not completelyseal the macro-voids upon saturation due to the loss of osmotic potentialin the salt environment from the leachate. Such behavior of GCLs canlead to advection-dominant virus migration through the liner system.A knowledge of the fate and transport of coronavirus and other viralpathogens in compacted clays is essential for safe disposal of theviral pathogens in MSW landfills. Although the attenuation and transportparameters for coronavirus have been recently evaluated theoretically,experimental backup is currently lacking. The present work uses Newcastledisease virus (NDV) as a surrogate to coronavirus due to structuralsimilarities for studying the fate and transport in the compactednatural clays. This study also implicitly addresses the waste managementfacilities for waste generated from NDV outbreaks through poultrylitter and carcasses. The interaction of bentonite and kaolin clayswith the NDV was studied by varying the virus concentration, interactiontime, and clay dose using batch sorption tests. The studied claysshowed excellent attenuation efficiency for the NDV. Design parameters,viz., the diffusion coefficient and retardation factor, were evaluated,affirming the suitability of these clays for exclusive pathogenicwaste disposal protocols that are discussed in this article.