No, global warming is not a natural phenomenon. The green house effect is natural heating of the earth due to greenhouse gases. Global warming is caused by humans. I was wondering how do landfills contribute to global warming and does it emmit excess greenhouse gases like combustion?
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December 19th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
The organic matter in waste such as food decays due to bacterial action and produces methane. Methane is hundreds of times more effective as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, so it is the important one to avoid. Some landfills are effectively sealed and some collect the methane gas and use it as a fuel.
The website shows a few examples.
Other less important impacts of landfills on global warming:
Carbon dioxide production
Fuel used by compactors
Fuel used by collection trucks
Note that methane is generally quoted as 21 times as effective as Carbon dioxide, but this takes into account the much shorter life of methane in the atmosphere.
December 22nd, 2009 at 4:07 am
Landfills have a significant impact on global warming in the longer term, and, in the short term that we confront several irreversible tipping points, landfills impacts are critical.
In landfills, and only in landfills, is uncontrolled methane generated from the waste sector as organic discards decompose under anaerobic (oxygen starved) conditions. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, almost 80% of the gases escape even from landfills with gas collection systems, and, in the U.S., only about half of gas emissions are at landfills with gas collection.
Methane is a greenhouse gas on steroids with, according to NASA’s latest estimates this year, 34 times the warming potential of CO2 when measured over 100 years, and 105 times CO2 in the near term when concerns over tipping points are greates.