Why the need for degassing of landfill sites?
Andrii Hrinenko, Director of the “Clear energy” company
At every opportunity, I remind people that according to various data, more than 5% of the territory of Ukraine is occupied by landfills. Legally, there are about 6,500 of them, while more than 30,000 are illegal!
CLEAR ENERGY has been working in the energy sector since 2015, one of the key areas of our work is the construction of thermal power plants and the degassing of solid municipal waste landfills by installing cogeneration units for the production of electric energy with a biogas collection and disposal system. As of today, our units are already operating in 12 regions of Ukraine. That is why we have a thorough knowledge of this problem.
Even if now, by some sort of magic, the whole Ukraine will start sorting waste, it will take more than one year to solve the problem of existing overflowing landfills. Switzerland and Sweden, which are leaders in the field of waste management, started implementing appropriate policies in the 1970s, and geographically close Poland – in 2003. We are only starting this discussion now. Therefore, there is still a huge amount of information work, preparation of appropriate capacities, and most importantly, changing of the attitude of people to this process ahead. It’s hard to imagine how far we still have to go.
One of the main problems of solid municipal waste landfills is that during the biological decomposition of organic residues, biogas is released, which consists of methane, as well as carbon dioxide, nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and other gases. These are harmful compounds that enter the human lungs, our rivers and lakes, and our fertile land and poison them. Also, methane is one of the factors of the “greenhouse effect” that causes global warming and melting of glaciers. At its core, it is more than 20 times more harmful to the planet than carbon dioxide (CO2).
By itself, biogas is a valuable raw material for the production of electricity. Environmental standards in developed countries have long provided for the mandatory collection and burning of biogas from landfills, in Ukraine, this market is just beginning to develop. In addition to obvious economic advantages, the construction of cogeneration units can significantly improve the environmental situation in the region. Degassing reduces the amount of methane in the air, and minimizes the risk of fires, explosions, and other disasters. It is carried out mainly on already closed landfills, for this purpose special wells are drilled, through which the biogas enters a special separator, where it is cleaned, then it is burned in engine generators and converted into electricity.
In the legislation of the European Union work with landfills is strictly regulated . There is a direct ban on burying waste with a large amount of organic matter, the so-called “unstable” waste, in landfills. This approach allows to significantly reduce possible future environmental damage at the stage of waste collection. In Switzerland, such a ban has been introduced since 2000, in Austria – since 2004, in Germany – since 2005.
In Ukraine, this problem became known to the public and was significantly prioritized after the tragedy at the Hrybovytske landfill near Lviv almost three years ago. It all started with a fire that could not be extinguished for three days. And a few days after it had been extinguished, a waste slide occurred. Tons of waste buried four people: three rescuers and one employee of a utility company, whose body has still not been found.
After such a large-scale environmental disaster, it is absolutely impossible to operate the landfill, it is necessary to immediately conduct degassing so that this situation does not repeat in the future. After all, not only residents of the nearest villages are at risk, but also residents of a part of the region! The city government of Lviv, fortunately, understands this, and therefore held a competition to find an experienced company for degassing the solid municipal waste landfill. Our company is the undisputed leader in Ukraine in the process of landfill degassing, so we took part in the competition, which we easily won. Preparatory work will soon begin, after which our leading experts will take it upon themselves to make the Hrybovytske landfill safer for the residents of the region.
The material was taken from LIGA.net