An Analysis of the Release of Green House Gasses from Landfills

Overview

Objectives/Goals Carbon Dioxide and Methane are green house gases that have the greatest impact because of the amount of heat that it can retain. These gases are produced from bacterial decay from organic material. In landfills the two types of landfill trash that produce the largest amount of methane are Alternative Daily Cover (ADC) and Municipal Solid Waste (MSW). In this project, the amount of methane and carbon dioxide produced form ADC must be less or equal to that of MSW to prove the hypothesis. The Environmental Protection Agency proposed to ban ADC as a cover and instead use it to produce electricity. The goal of this experiment is to prove that ADC dose not produce more methane of that of MSW. Methods/Materials 1.Get eight standard Waste Management trash bins2.Seal air tight with silicone and duct tape.3.Tap and drill a hole for methane reading.4.Go to landfill and gather contents to fill all the bins.5.Fill Bin #1. Municipal solid waste and Alternative daily cover.6.Fill Bin #2 Municipal solid waste(house hold waste).7.Fill Bin #3 Commercial waste.8.Fill Bin #4 Alternative Daily Cover(green waste).9.Fill Bin #5 Municipal solid waste and 14inches of water (yearly amount of rain). 10.Fill Bin #6 Municipal solid waste and 60 inches of water (yearly amount in northwest)11.Fill Bin #7 with municipal solid waste and 12 inches of dirt.12.Fill Bin #8 Dirt (control)13.Leave for one week. Take CH4, CO2, and reading of all bins. Results As the methane was produce in the airtight bins, it was obvious the ADC was not producing more methane than MSW. .The methane for ADC was 0.9% and then for MSW it was 1.1% which was .2% more than the ADC. As the eighth week passed the methane was almost even as all the other bin but yet the methane of the MSW was higher which did proved the hypothesis. Conclusions/Discussion The results that were found were that the bin with the highest methane concentration after eight weeks of monitoring was municipal solid waste or MSW. MSW is consisted of many different food types and also paper and plastic product which can consist of a large rage of moisture where ADC can only have one small range of moisture. ADC decomposed faster it produced less methane. By proving this, it is shown that the Environmental Protection Agency or EPA dose not have any reason the ban the use of this type of daily cover.

Competition history

• CSEF 2009 Earth & Environment (Senior Division Only) · Entry S0825

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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