Landfill gas

Landfill gas is approximately forty to sixty percent methane, with the remainder being mostly carbon dioxide.

The landfills affected by Subtitle D of RCRA are required to control gas by establishing a way to check for methane emissions periodically and therefore prevent off-site migration.

The landfill gas can be utilized directly on-site by a boiler or any type of combustion system, providing heat.

This approach requires the gas to be processed into pipeline quality, e.g., by removing various contaminants and components.

A comparison of collection efficiency at closed and open landfills found about a 17 percentage point difference between the two.

[12] The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) argues that government incentives should be directed more towards solar, wind, and energy-efficiency efforts.

[13][14] Several accidents have occurred, for example at Loscoe, England in 1986,[15] where migrating landfill gas accumulated and partially destroyed a property.

An accident causing two deaths occurred from an explosion in a house adjacent to Skellingsted landfill in Denmark in 1991.

This, in turn, can result in contamination of groundwater by organic compounds present in nearly all landfill gas.

This can create an explosion hazard if the gas reaches sufficiently high concentrations in adjacent buildings.

A United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report indicates that as of 2016, counts of operational municipal solid waste landfills range between 1,900 and 2,000.

In a nationwide study done by the Environmental Research and Education Foundation in 2013, only 1,540 operational municipal solid waste landfills were counted throughout the United States.