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A gas flare produced by a landfill in Lake County, Ohio. Landfill gas is a mix of different gases created by the action of microorganisms within a landfill as they decompose organic waste, including for example, food waste and paper waste. Landfill gas is approximately forty to sixty percent methane, with the remainder being mostly carbon dioxide.
The use of landfill gas is considered a green fuel source because it offsets the use of environmentally damaging fuels such as oil or natural gas, destroys the heat-trapping gas methane, and the gas is generated by deposits of waste that are already in place. 450 of the 2,300 landfills in the United States have operational landfill gas ...
Landfills are also a hotbed for waste, from decomposing vegetable scraps and meat bones to worn household appliances, which produce copious amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas with a warming ...
Methane gas, a strong greenhouse gas, can build up inside the landfill leading to an explosion unless released from the cell. [5] Leachate are fluid metabolic products from decomposition and contain various types of toxins and dissolved metallic ions. [6] If leachate escapes into the ground water it can cause health problems in both animals and ...
The gas that is produced by landfills is about half methane and half carbon dioxide and water vapor, in addition to a small amount of other organic compounds. Pumpkins sit in a field in Colorado ...
Typically landfills try to keep oxygen levels to less than 5%, because higher levels can speed up decomposition, produce heat and raise the risk of an underground landfill fire.
Methanogenesis can also be beneficially exploited, to treat organic waste, to produce useful compounds, and the methane can be collected and used as biogas, a fuel. [21] It is the primary pathway whereby most organic matter disposed of via landfill is broken down. [ 22 ]
Landfills are releasing large amounts of planet-warming methane gas into the atmosphere, a study suggests.