Trash is flattened and spread out across a hilllside before being covered with dirt at the Prima Deshecha landfill in San Juan Capistrano, California on Thursday, March 10, 2022.
Petition Demands EPA Take Action on 'Under-the-Radar' Methane Emissions From Landfills
"Protective landfill standards are an urgently needed addition to other significant actions EPA has recently taken to reduce climate-destabilizing and health-harming pollution," said one advocate.
Joined by two residents of a community where emissions from landfills have forced them to live in the "center of a toxic wasteland," more than a dozen environmental and community advocacy groups on Thursday filed a petition with the Biden administration calling for a number of specific regulations to address the United States' third-largest source of methane pollution.
A month after the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) published a report detailing how the nation's roughly 1,100 city and county landfills emitted at least 3.7 million metric tons of methane in 2021, the group was joined by the Sierra Club, Black Warrior Riverkeeper, Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN), and several other organizations to demand the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) take action.
Javian Baker and Gilda Hagan-Brown, residents of Waggaman, Louisiana, which is adjacent to a landfill, also joined the petition. The emissions coming from the landfill mean that residents' "right to a healthy, safe and clean environment [is] jeopardized," said Hagan-Brown in a statement, and that their "aspirations have been destroyed."
"The foul gassy smell lurking in our neighborhood inhibits me from bringing my fifteen-month-old outside to play," said Baker. "This petition offers a glimpse of hope when politicians in Jefferson Parish and landfill officials have yet to get to the root of the problem impacting our predominately Black community."
The yearly methane emissions from landfills are equivalent to 295 million metric tons of greenhouse gases over 20-year period, or 66 million gasoline-powered vehicles over a year.
Edwin LaMair, attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund, noted that technological advances in recent years, including the ability to conduct aerial surveys of methane emissions at landfills, offer the EPA "an enormous opportunity to update and strengthen its standards for landfill pollution."
"Landfill pollution poses serious public health threats, and protective landfill standards are an urgently needed addition to other significant actions EPA has recently taken to reduce climate-destabilizing and health-harming pollution," said LaMair.
In its report, Trashing the Climate, last month, EIP noted that landfills contribute to methane emissions mainly due to rotting food waste. Americans throw away roughly 40% of their food and food waste has soared in the last three decades.
The petition calls on the EPA to encourage composting and waste reduction to reduce landfill methane emissions.
The Rocky Mountain Institute explained on social media earlier this week how diverting waste from landfills not only reduces emissions, but also allows the waste to be converted into valuable resources for communities.
The groups on Wednesday also called on the EPA to:
- Require more landfills to install gas collection and control systems, including pipes that collect methane from garbage and covering materials, such as soil, that help absorb and destroy methane;
- Require flares that burn methane at landfills to have at least a 99% destruction efficiency, meaning they burn up almost all of the pollution;
- Require landfills to install gas capture systems within one year after the dumping of waste; and
- Impose better requirements for direct measurement of methane and support the development of equipment that can continuously monitor landfill emissions.
"Virginia is home to eight 'mega-landfills,' many of which are sited in low-income communities of color," said Anne Havemann, general counsel for CCAN. "These landfills emit huge amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, but have not received the attention they deserve for all the pollution they release. We look forward to EPA taking action on this under-the-radar issue."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, The U.S. is on a fast track to authoritarianism like nothing I've ever seen. Meanwhile, corporate news outlets are utterly capitulating to Trump, twisting their coverage to avoid drawing his ire while lining up to stuff cash in his pockets. That's why I believe that Common Dreams is doing the best and most consequential reporting that we've ever done. Our small but mighty team is a progressive reporting powerhouse, covering the news every day that the corporate media never will. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. And to ignite change for the common good. Now here's the key piece that I want all our readers to understand: None of this would be possible without your financial support. That's not just some fundraising cliche. It's the absolute and literal truth. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. The final deadline for our crucial Summer Campaign fundraising drive is just days away, and we’re falling short of our must-hit goal. Will you donate now to help power the nonprofit, independent reporting of Common Dreams? Thank you for being a vital member of our community. Together, we can keep independent journalism alive when it’s needed most. - Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Joined by two residents of a community where emissions from landfills have forced them to live in the "center of a toxic wasteland," more than a dozen environmental and community advocacy groups on Thursday filed a petition with the Biden administration calling for a number of specific regulations to address the United States' third-largest source of methane pollution.
A month after the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) published a report detailing how the nation's roughly 1,100 city and county landfills emitted at least 3.7 million metric tons of methane in 2021, the group was joined by the Sierra Club, Black Warrior Riverkeeper, Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN), and several other organizations to demand the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) take action.
Javian Baker and Gilda Hagan-Brown, residents of Waggaman, Louisiana, which is adjacent to a landfill, also joined the petition. The emissions coming from the landfill mean that residents' "right to a healthy, safe and clean environment [is] jeopardized," said Hagan-Brown in a statement, and that their "aspirations have been destroyed."
"The foul gassy smell lurking in our neighborhood inhibits me from bringing my fifteen-month-old outside to play," said Baker. "This petition offers a glimpse of hope when politicians in Jefferson Parish and landfill officials have yet to get to the root of the problem impacting our predominately Black community."
The yearly methane emissions from landfills are equivalent to 295 million metric tons of greenhouse gases over 20-year period, or 66 million gasoline-powered vehicles over a year.
Edwin LaMair, attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund, noted that technological advances in recent years, including the ability to conduct aerial surveys of methane emissions at landfills, offer the EPA "an enormous opportunity to update and strengthen its standards for landfill pollution."
"Landfill pollution poses serious public health threats, and protective landfill standards are an urgently needed addition to other significant actions EPA has recently taken to reduce climate-destabilizing and health-harming pollution," said LaMair.
In its report, Trashing the Climate, last month, EIP noted that landfills contribute to methane emissions mainly due to rotting food waste. Americans throw away roughly 40% of their food and food waste has soared in the last three decades.
The petition calls on the EPA to encourage composting and waste reduction to reduce landfill methane emissions.
The Rocky Mountain Institute explained on social media earlier this week how diverting waste from landfills not only reduces emissions, but also allows the waste to be converted into valuable resources for communities.
The groups on Wednesday also called on the EPA to:
- Require more landfills to install gas collection and control systems, including pipes that collect methane from garbage and covering materials, such as soil, that help absorb and destroy methane;
- Require flares that burn methane at landfills to have at least a 99% destruction efficiency, meaning they burn up almost all of the pollution;
- Require landfills to install gas capture systems within one year after the dumping of waste; and
- Impose better requirements for direct measurement of methane and support the development of equipment that can continuously monitor landfill emissions.
"Virginia is home to eight 'mega-landfills,' many of which are sited in low-income communities of color," said Anne Havemann, general counsel for CCAN. "These landfills emit huge amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, but have not received the attention they deserve for all the pollution they release. We look forward to EPA taking action on this under-the-radar issue."
Joined by two residents of a community where emissions from landfills have forced them to live in the "center of a toxic wasteland," more than a dozen environmental and community advocacy groups on Thursday filed a petition with the Biden administration calling for a number of specific regulations to address the United States' third-largest source of methane pollution.
A month after the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) published a report detailing how the nation's roughly 1,100 city and county landfills emitted at least 3.7 million metric tons of methane in 2021, the group was joined by the Sierra Club, Black Warrior Riverkeeper, Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN), and several other organizations to demand the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) take action.
Javian Baker and Gilda Hagan-Brown, residents of Waggaman, Louisiana, which is adjacent to a landfill, also joined the petition. The emissions coming from the landfill mean that residents' "right to a healthy, safe and clean environment [is] jeopardized," said Hagan-Brown in a statement, and that their "aspirations have been destroyed."
"The foul gassy smell lurking in our neighborhood inhibits me from bringing my fifteen-month-old outside to play," said Baker. "This petition offers a glimpse of hope when politicians in Jefferson Parish and landfill officials have yet to get to the root of the problem impacting our predominately Black community."
The yearly methane emissions from landfills are equivalent to 295 million metric tons of greenhouse gases over 20-year period, or 66 million gasoline-powered vehicles over a year.
Edwin LaMair, attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund, noted that technological advances in recent years, including the ability to conduct aerial surveys of methane emissions at landfills, offer the EPA "an enormous opportunity to update and strengthen its standards for landfill pollution."
"Landfill pollution poses serious public health threats, and protective landfill standards are an urgently needed addition to other significant actions EPA has recently taken to reduce climate-destabilizing and health-harming pollution," said LaMair.
In its report, Trashing the Climate, last month, EIP noted that landfills contribute to methane emissions mainly due to rotting food waste. Americans throw away roughly 40% of their food and food waste has soared in the last three decades.
The petition calls on the EPA to encourage composting and waste reduction to reduce landfill methane emissions.
The Rocky Mountain Institute explained on social media earlier this week how diverting waste from landfills not only reduces emissions, but also allows the waste to be converted into valuable resources for communities.
The groups on Wednesday also called on the EPA to:
- Require more landfills to install gas collection and control systems, including pipes that collect methane from garbage and covering materials, such as soil, that help absorb and destroy methane;
- Require flares that burn methane at landfills to have at least a 99% destruction efficiency, meaning they burn up almost all of the pollution;
- Require landfills to install gas capture systems within one year after the dumping of waste; and
- Impose better requirements for direct measurement of methane and support the development of equipment that can continuously monitor landfill emissions.
"Virginia is home to eight 'mega-landfills,' many of which are sited in low-income communities of color," said Anne Havemann, general counsel for CCAN. "These landfills emit huge amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, but have not received the attention they deserve for all the pollution they release. We look forward to EPA taking action on this under-the-radar issue."