Leachate Management

Leachate Management

Dungster is always seeking to improve the environmental outcome.

Composting often generates a liquid discharge called leachate. Leachate is nutrient rich and brown in color. Discharging this into the public waterways is to be avoided. Some composting methods minimally control leachate with channels directing it to surface catch basins. These can be problematic with foul appearance, odors, and vectors.

Dungster facilitates three leachate management methods for Dungster owners/operators. All three are possible because a dumpster, used as the host vessel for the Dungster in-vessel composting method, only permits liquid to be discharged at the door as the rest of the dumpster is a welded solid box.

The first and simplest approach is called the “vegetative buffer” method for leachate management. While simple it still needs to be done with care attention to detail. A good article guiding the use of vegetative buffers is found in Manure Manager Journal November/December 2024 issue.

The second method, customized by Dungster and for dumpster composting, is the DungsterLeachate Trap (DLT). This is an accessory that can be added to the Dungster system to actively catch the leachate between the dumpster door and ground below. The Dungster Leachate Trap is as long as a dumpster’s door is wide, and it is just wide enough to catch the drips without catching rain during a shower. At one end is a sump box with a pump. When the trap catches sufficient leachate, the pump will activate and lift the liquid from the sump. The discharge point can be back into the composter above allowing it to percolate into the composting organics or to another location such as a barrel or holding tank.

To minimize service, Dungster Leachate Trap has three layers of screens. The first screen, at the top, prevents large debris from entering. This is a visible screen/grate and lifts out for easy cleaning. A second screen, between the catch’s trap long channel and the sump box screens any finer debris that passes the first screen/grate. Finally, the pump’s suction surface has another screen for any remaining fine debris. All solids passing the final screen will pass through the pump unnoticed. Dungster Leachate Trap, like all Dungster components, considers the operator’s physical limits. It is 10-feet long with a pair of wheels on the pump end and a handle on the opposite end. When it is necessary to move the unit from one dumpster to another, the handle end is picked up and the unit is supported by two wheels like a long “roll-a-board” suitcase and will follow the user wherever he or she walks. No “dead-lift” is required.

Finally, Dungster facilities a third leachate management method that some owners/operators might elect if their site has concrete pads to be poured. This is simply a trough drain, as seen in many commercial garages, built into the concrete pad that supports the Dungster composters. These trough drains usually have a steel grate on the top and below the grate is a catch basin and drain lines to a holding tank or sanitary sewer system. If the concrete work is sloped correctly, “clean” rainwater will not enter the leachate trough drain which is positioned just below the dumpster’s door. Dungster provides detailed design advice for these facilities to follow. In short, the clean rainwater and snow melt is diverted away, and the leachate is caught and kept out of the watershed.