A danger beyond what we can imagine: Landfills

A new study has shown that landfills are much bigger drivers of climate change than we previously believed.

In their article, the researchers state that garbage buried for decades is now releasing tons of methane emissions into the atmosphere, which contributes to changes in temperatures globally and may lead to even more climate change problems.

It has long been known that open dumps create a lot of methane as waste decays. But the new study suggests that methane emissions from landfills are up to three times higher than previously reported. Researchers say they measured about 20 percent of the approximately 1,200 large, operating landfills in the United States.

During these measurements, they found evidence that landfills are indeed a major driver of methane emissions and therefore a major driver of climate change as a whole. When it comes to emissions from landfills, we often don’t know enough, says Riley Duren, a former NASA engineer and scientist who helped with the research and has since founded Carbon Mapper.

A danger beyond what we can imagine

This new study provides overwhelming evidence that methane emissions from landfills are far beyond what we could have imagined. Of course, this situation is quite dangerous and important due to the consequences that the out-of-control greenhouse effect may have on the Earth.

Although it remains in the atmosphere for a shorter time than carbon dioxide, methane has a much stronger effect, causing a warming effect 80 times stronger than the same amount of CO2 over a 20-year period, researchers say.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency now estimates that landfills are the third largest source of human-caused methane emissions, emitting as much greenhouse gas as 23 million fossil fuel-powered cars over the course of a year, the New York Times reported. But these estimates were always based on computer modeling, as it is difficult and dangerous for workers with methane “sensors” to accurately measure landfill emissions.

Because of these dangers and challenges, the new study relied heavily on aircraft flights and imaging spectrometers to help categorize methane rising from landfills around the United States. Given the multiple hotspots detected in landfills, as well as large methane plumes that can last for months or even years, these emissions certainly appear to be much higher than predicted by computer modelling.

Fortunately, because methane also poses an explosion hazard, many landfills have pipelines to remove methane emitted from rotting garbage so it can be burned or used to generate electricity and heat. But like everything else, pipes and wells have a tendency to leak, and some of the methane is released back into the atmosphere.

The researchers argue that landfills need to detect and fix these leaks, not only so that we can get a more accurate view of methane emissions from landfills, but also so that we can ensure the safety of workers who must pass through these landfills for any reason.