Waste Management's Landfill Gas Efforts Recognised by EPA

20 January 2012

Houston, Texas based U.S. waste giant, Waste Management (WM) has been recognised by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Landfill Methane Outreach Program (LMOP) as 2011 Industry Partner of the Year for the development of waste based renewable energy.

According to the company, in 2011 it commissioned nine Landfill Gas to Energy (LFGTE) facilities with a collective capacity of 29.5 MW - bringing its total number of active facilities in North America to 133.

In total, the company said that these facilities produced the equivalent of 617 MW of power - enough to power 473,000 homes, and offset the consumption of over 2.4 million tons (2.18 million tonnes) of coal.

The EPA's LMOP has assisted with more than 500 LFG energy projects over the past 16 years.

According to Wm, the U.S. has around 575 operational LFGTE projects which annually supply more than 14 billion kWh of electricity and around 102 billion cubic feet (2.9 billion cubic metres) of LFG to direct-use applications.

However, the company said that there is still significant potential for expansion of the technology and LMOP has identified over 500 landfills that could provide an additional 1155 MW of electrical power.

Wm said that it plans to commission four additional projects in the first quarter of 2012 and is working on at least eight additional projects through its dedicated in-house project development team. 


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