During the last decades, considerable efforts have been devoted to the reduction of ultimate municipal solid waste (MSW), but landfills are still a major step in the MSW treatment process since a great part of MSW are not recyclable with the current techniques. However, it is becoming fairly difficult to find new sites to build new landfills because of several reasons such as the limited available footprint and the opposition from nearby residents. To address that problem and to increase the waste storage capacity while using the existing operating infrastructures, an attractive alternative is to build new landfills over older ones. This new way of building what is called piggy-back landfills requires implementing an efficient drainage and lining system (DLS) between the old and new waste. By addressing a comprehensive review of landfills worldwide, this study aims to show the main components of the DLS necessary to guarantee its stability and integrity. This study also provides the regulatory framework and some state of the art and international standardization in the design of the DLS in the context of piggy-back landfills. The purpose is to provide some safe practices in the design of such DLS.
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