Background and Objective

It has been assumed that mechanical-biologically pre-treatment mitigates greenhouse gas emissions. However, greenhouse gas emissions from MBT landfills have almost not been measured so far. The project conducts one of the first emission measurements from an MBT landfill. Results of the project enable better control of waste treatment, which results in better mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions.

Target Group

Results are aimed at MBT plant and landfill operators and provide new knowledge for national greenhouse gas inventories.

Approach

We measured emissions of methane and nitrous oxide using manual chambers,  sampled the landfill gas and analyzed conditions of nitrogen transformations within the landfill.

Results

Our results show that, at least at the studied landfill, the waste pre-treatment sucessfully prevented methane emissions. However, the high contents of nitrogen together with aeration during tipping of the material resulted in extraordinarily high nitrous oxide emissions. This shows that future efforts should concentrate on mitigating nitrous oxide emissions, without increasing methane emissions. It might already be sufficient to swiftly compact and cover the recently deposited waste material.