Casella and its partners are now producing roughly 25 megawatts per hour of clean energy at five of the company’s landfills. This clean energy is enough to power approximately 25,000 homes and results in substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.  When organic material (things like banana peels and paper cups) in solid waste decomposes in a landfill, it naturally generates a mixture of gases known as landfill gas. Landfill gas is a mixture of approximately equal parts methane and carbon dioxide, along with other trace gases such as water vapor. To capture this gas before it can escape to the air, we use a series of wells connected by piping to a powerful vacuum system to extract it so that the gas can be converted to electricity or another end use.