The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, eight states, and 12 utility companies have joined together to promote a new voluntary program to reduce global warming emissions by turning landfill gas into energy. The power generated from landfill gas could then be sold to utilities and others, generating revenue while reducing a potent greenhouse gas.
Landfills are the largest source of methane pollution in the United States.
Virtually identical to natural gas, methane also is a greenhouse gas, contributing 18 percent of all global warming emissions. The new voluntary program to convert landfill methane emissions to energy is a part of the Federal Climate Change Action Plan, announced by President Clinton in October 1993 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000. We hope the program will help landfill owners to protect the environment by turning an environmental problem into profits that helps us reach our goals of cleaner air and abundant energy. Each person in the United States generates about 4.5 pounds of waste per day, or almost one ton per year, most of which is deposited in municipal solid waste landfills. Landfill gas contributes to the formation of smog and poses an explosion hazard if uncontrolled.