Helping EPA Reduce Landfill Methane Emissions

As a key approach to mitigating climate change, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency created the Landfill Methane Outreach Program in 1994 to help the municipal solid waste industry reduce its anthropogenic methane emissions while also increasing the production of renewable energy in the United States. LMOP provides its partners with technical assistance and information, hosts and presents at events to encourage methane reduction activities, enables partners to share experiences and lessons learned, creates models and other tools, and tracks key industry data. Successful implementation of a voluntary partnership program requires an infrastructure to provide the information, tools, and coordination necessary to engage and support partners on an ongoing basis—and to tackle the complex task of obtaining the industry data necessary to track and report methane reduction achievements. LMOP has a recently renewed emphasis on helping to increase the national percentage of landfill methane that is captured and destroyed, as part of the November 2021 U.S. Methane Emissions Reduction Action Plan.

For more than 20 years, ERG has served as the primary contractor providing technical, data, outreach, and communications support to help LMOP achieve its goals. Our support continually evolves and adapts in response to changing program needs. For example, recently, ERG:

• Revised LMOP’s national map of landfill and landfill gas energy project data to include environmental justice demographic information and tribal land boundaries to help identify areas where landfill gas energy projects may require additional consideration.
• Researched and created a toolkit to help landfills with expiring power purchase agreements review their options for continuing to mitigate landfill methane emissions.
• Contacted more than 60 landfills to offer direct LMOP technical assistance to encourage early or voluntary installation of landfill gas collection systems.