Title: Methane emission potential of open dumps in Chennai: a case study

Authors: Obulisamy Parthiba Karthikeyan; Kurian Joseph; S. Esakku

Addresses: Centre for Environmental Studies, Anna University Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600 025, India. ' Centre for Environmental Studies, Anna University Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600 025, India. ' Loyola Institute of Technology, Palanchur, Nazerthpet, Sriperumbudur (Tk.), Kancheepuram 602103, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract: Monitoring of atmospheric levels of methane and other Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) holds great promise for the mitigation of global warming resulting from increasing radioactive trapping by atmospheric gases. Since, the direct measurements of landfill methane emission found to be difficult, the methane emission potential of the open dumps in Chennai has been estimated using first-order decay models such as TNO, LandGEM and zero-order model (EPER model, Germany). The resulted methane emission was around 33 × 10⁶ m³, 36 × 10⁶ m³ and 52 × 10⁴ m³ based on the TNO, LandGEM and zero-order models, respectively. The results concluded that the methane emission from the Chennai dumps contributed to 0.13% of the overall global landfill methane emission and 1.3% of Indian landfill methane emissions within the years between 1986 and 2003.

Keywords: MSW; municipal solid waste; open dumping; methane emission; first-order decay model; TNO; LandGEM; EPER models; landfill emissions; solid waste management; India.

DOI: 10.1504/IJETM.2012.049229

International Journal of Environmental Technology and Management, 2012 Vol.15 No.3/4/5/6, pp.291 - 304

Published online: 17 Dec 2014 *

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