TerraPass project tour: Landfill Gas Capture

Control Methane Gas from Landfills

When you buy a carbon offset from TerraPass, part of your money supports projects which capture gas from landfills.

The trash we bury in landfills decomposes slowly, producing methane which escapes into the atmosphere. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas - about 21 times as powerful as carbon dioxide - so projects which capture and destroy that gas are of great benefit to the climate. These projects capture the methane from landfills using wells, pipes, caps, blowers and other technology; and destroy the gas by burning it in a flare.

We recognize this may seem counterintuitive. Burning methane gas does, after all, create and release carbon dioxide. But in this case, releasing carbon dioxide completes a balanced carbon cycle. The carbon released comes from the organic materials in the landfill; and those materials gathered their carbon by pulling carbon dioxide out of the air. Burning the methane gas returns the carbon to its original form, carbon dioxide, completing the cycle. It's the very human activity of compiling our waste into landfills that creates the imbalance in the form of methane gas.

Your carbon offset from TerraPass is always measured in "pounds of carbon dioxide". Carbon dioxide is the worldwide standard of measure for greenhouse gas emissions. When we fund a project that reduces methane, the project's beneficial effect is converted to "pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent," during the project's verification by a third party. To date, all landfill gas capture projects are verified using the Chicago Climate Exchange verification protocols.

See our full project listing and audit information.

TerraPass has contributed to landfill gas capture projects at the Crossroads Landfill in Norridgewock, Maine; and the Tontitown Landfill in Arkansas. The Crossroads Landfill pipes landfill gas to two separate flares, and in 2006 they destroyed more than 9.3 million pounds of methane, the equivalent of more than 170 million pounds of carbon dioxide! The Tontitown landfill reported similar destruction numbers in 2005.