Landfill mining: a case study from Ghazipur landfill area of Delhi

Abstract

Unsecure landfill areas are contributors of soil, air and water pollution around the site. Beside that green house gases (GHG) emission from landfill areas is concern to the global warming. In the present study the methane and nitrous oxide were analysed in Ghazipur landfill area of Delhi. The Ghazipur landfill area is one of the biggest and oldest landfill areas of Delhi. The municipal solid waste is indiscriminately disposed here since last 30 years and the landfill area has become mountain of waste. Landfill mining is process of recovering valuable recyclable materials, which have previously been landfilled. This landfill area is being converted into waste to energy plant, where garbage will be mined to convert into refuse derive fuel (RDF) to be used for energy generation and the ten acre of landfill area is given to Gas Authority of India (GAI) for mining methane and other gases to be used as fuel. The field experiment was also done to estimate methane and nitrous oxide emission from landfill areas of Ghazipur and the range of methane emission flux was 18 mg/m 2 /h lowest in winter sample and highest 264 mg/m 2 /h in summer sample. The range of nitrous oxide emission was estimated as 230-1730 μg/m 2 /h, if the extraction rate and calorific value of emitted gas is