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All of us who have ever worked in the waste industry have often heard the term leacha-tes. I remember that at frst, when I star-ted to work at WRG I thought that it was a made-up word but soon I found out that it was a real word and was used to designa-te a rather important area. What, then, ha-ppens to the liquids that are pumped from our landfll sites? Where do they go? Patrick

Bailey, manager of the project invited me to take a tour of the new Leachate Treatment Plant (LTP) at Bletchley. Patrick is part of the leachate treatment team headed by Dan-ny Jones who works jointly with Steve Fa-rrow and Lorna Gibbs. I went to Bletchley to meet with Patrick, very intrigued since, according to him, the LTP process is similar to taking care of a pet.

The similarity with a pet is what intrigued me the most. Why do you have the perception that working at the plant is similar to taking

care of a pet? Well, he answered, leacha-tes are treated microbes and bacteria that you have to feed and take care of. For mi-crobes, leachates are like food that, when eaten their elements are broken down and can then be loaded into the waste water

The wall of the tank built with concrete segments

Raw leachate tanks, known as Bletchley and Calvert