Science Inventory

Greenhouse gas reporting data improves understanding of regional climate impact on landfill methane production and collection

Citation:

Jain, P., J. Wally, T. Townsend, M. Krause, AND T. Tolaymat. Greenhouse gas reporting data improves understanding of regional climate impact on landfill methane production and collection. PLOS ONE . Public Library of Science, San Francisco, CA, 16(2):e0246334, (2021). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0246334

Impact/Purpose:

Evaluated the Green House Gas Reporting Rule Database to examine the gaseous emissions from landfills.

Description:

Closed landfills provide the best opportunity to analyze landfill methane production because gas collection efficiency is at its highest. In this paper, 5-8 years of annual methane collection data from 114 closed landfills located in 29 states of the contiguous United States were used to estimate site-specific waste decay rates (k) and methane collection potentials (Lc). These sites (114) account for approximately 9% of all landfills required to annually report greenhouse gas emissions to the United States Environmental Protection Agency. The mean methane collection potential (Lc) for the sites located in regions with less than 635 mm (25 in) annual rainfall was significantly (p 1016 mm (40 in) per year). The data suggest that waste is decaying faster than the model default values, in turn suggesting that a larger fraction of methane is produced during a landfill’s operating life (relative to after closure). In addition, the results of this evaluation offers insights that challenge assumptions of the traditional landfill methane estimation approach, especially in arid climates, that all methane corresponding to the total methane generation potential of the buried solid waste is produced.