Landfilling of Waste

9. Gas Management

9.1 Definition and strategy

9.1 Definition and Strategy

With the overall strategy for the landfill of waste contained in the Danish Environmental Protection Agency’s Plan of Action for Waste and Recycling - which aims to minimise the volume of waste for landfilling - and Chapter 2 of this Guideline, only small quantities of gas will be generated.

For the individual types of landfill unit, the assessment is as follows:

The very nature of the waste that can be accepted for landfill in such a unit implies that gas will be generated on an insignificant scale only.

The nature of the waste that can be accepted for landfill in such a unit implies that the generation of gas will be very small.

In a unit of this type it is likely that a certain - but still modest - quantity of organic waste and slowly decomposable organic waste will be landfilled. Therefore, in the light of the knowledge of the landfilled waste, an environmental evaluation should be made as to whether the generated gas must/can be collected and, as the case may be, recovered for energy generation.

In a unit of this type considerable quantities of organic matter will occur; therefore, collection and recovery of the gas should also be undertaken.

Where gas is generated from landfilled waste, the gas must be managed in an environmentally sound manner. During the operating phase the gas must be handled to ensure that no explosion risk will arise, and to reduce the risk of fire in the landfilled waste. Subsequently, the management of gas should aim to eliminate the risk of damage to vegetation in the final cover of the landfill and/or the surroundings.