High Landfill Gas Collection Efficiencies Reported

The Solid Waste Association of North America’s (SWANA) Applied Research Foundation (ARF) recently released information on the reported recovery efficiencies of landfill gas collection and recovery systems. The  ARF reviewed three field studies at five closed-capped landfills and found that  average landfill gas efficiency for all of the tested landfills was over 90 percent.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) sets requirements for the emissions released from municipal solid waste landfills. When estimating the level of emissions from a landfill, the municipality can conduct a landfill gas collection study or use a default assumption of 75 percent landfill gas efficiency, according to the U.S. EPA’s AP-42 emission factor assumption in 2002. The ARF recommends that the U.S. EPA change their AP-42 document, created in 2002, according to the ARF’s 2007 studies findings.

Landfill Gas (LFG) is a natural byproduct of the decomposition of wastes in landfills. In order to minimize pollutant emission and recover energy value, many landfill managers have LFG recovery and utilization systems installed. SWANA recommends that the EPA change their AP-42 document to incorporate the new gas collection efficiencies that can be expected from MSW landfills that have traditional Subtitle D landfill cover systems and active landfill gas collection systems.

Read the complete ARF Landfill Gas Collection System Efficiencies report at http://swanastore.stores.yahoo.net/lagascosyef.html