Call to Action for the Waste
Management Companies
According to data that has been shown to be out gross underestimates, the waste industry is only responsible for 3.2% of the greenhouse gas emissions mainly in the form of methane. The sources also mention that only 1.9% come from landfills. However NASA's EMIT (Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation) satellite data has been showing that these numbers are low and that landfills are super emitters of methane. Based on the fact that Methane has such a high Global Warming Potential, we believe that the contribution to Global Warming of the organic wastes stored in the landfills is much higher than estimated.
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The good news is that reducing methane from landfills is simple today since the technologies needed to separate organic food waste from garbage and transform these into biomethane are available and demonstrated in large scale facilities. In US states, such as California, flyover data shows that 43% of the point sources of methane come from landfills. Interestingly, in spite of this information and government laws designed to minimize methane, waste companies have managed to continue to send most of their waste to landfill. Furthermore plants that have been built to allow waste companies to meet the requirement of municipalities and the state law passed in 2016 (SB 1383), are sitting idle in 2024 because it's more profitable to landfill and the government has not succeeded to enforce the law. Waste management companies, like the fossil fuel companies, should be expected to lobby governments to delay the enforcement of regulations. If this is not balanced by pressure from citizens and environmental groups, enforcement doesn't happen. ​
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The action plan for Wate Management Companies is also simple:
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Comply rather than fight applicable government regulations and show good citizenship to position yourselves favorably against competitors.
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Work with existing renewable technology companies to install mechanical food waste separators at your transfer centers.
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Send your source separated and mechanically separated food wastes to Bioenergy plants so that they can be transformed into Biomethane and fertilizers.
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Improve the Capture of methane from the landfills, clean the gas and either use it or inject it into the grid to maximize the use of renewable energy.​
