Search This Blog

Sunday, December 11, 2022

Climate and Humanitarian issue - Landfills and Methane gas emissions

 We all know 8 billion humans are going to produce A LOT of waste everyday that goes to landfills in every country around the world. In a place like India, where human population density within cities is among the highest in the world, and combined with millions living in extreme poverty, some horrific situations can develop, such as landfills that are over 200 feet tall (as tall as the Taj Mahal). Hundreds of thousands of people live in the shadows of these literal mountains of trash. 

But an additional consequence is the decay of much of that garbage, and one of the gases released in decay is methane - a greenhouse gas many times worse than carbon dioxide. The amount of methane leaked from a single landfill this large is the same as the annual release from 350,000 cars in America. It is a humanitarian health emergency for those who are already extremely poor, but also a larger climate contributor. What is the answer to these situations??? The photo is from New Dehli, India, in April of 2022.



No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.