Abstract
Landfill main gases are methane and carbon dioxide, and result mainly from the anaerobic digestion of organic waste. The exact distribution of gases in the landfill varies with the landfill age among other factors such as waste composition, moisture, particle size, temperature, pH, age of waste, landfill design and operation. The current Brazilian environmental legislation has encouraged the municipalities to adopt measures to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from landfills. The implementation of projects to reduce GHG requires the estimation of the gases produced in the landfill. This research presents a GHG inventory performed in the landfill of the city of Limeira, located in the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil. The inventory was conducted by using the Brazilian GHG Protocol that follows the methodology of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and also IPCC guidelines. The inventory comprised data from 1985 to 2013; however, data prior to 2000 were estimated, because until that year the landfill was in fact a dump, with no monitoring of the amounts of wastes disposed of. Three categories of emissions were considered: a) direct emissions of CO2 and CH4 from the decomposition of municipal solid waste (MSW) and non-hazardous industrial waste and the emissions produced from waste transportation within the landfill and landfill operation;b) emissions resulting from electricity consumption within the operating limits of the landfill; and, c) indirect emissions from waste transportation throughout the city to the landfill and also from industries to the landfill. The results showed that in the year 2013 were emitted 35,996.91 t of CO2 e into the atmosphere. From the total, 98.91 % of emissions were produced by MSW decomposition; 0.002 % by industrial waste decomposition; 0.332 % by burning fossil fuels during landfill operation; 0.003 % by electricity consumption of electricity in the landfill and 0.75 % by waste transportation.
