The average American throws away more than 900 pounds of trash every year. Organic waste degrading in landfills produces methane gas – a gas 21 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Although most landfills vent this gas in the atmosphere, some facilities are exploring how to use it to fuel trash haulers and other vehicles. The Department of Energy's Clean Cities program recognizes the potential of these new facilities to generate sustainable fuel from methane gas and thus is working to support landfill gas projects across the country... The potential for these projects is enormous. The U.S. population produces 27 billion cubic feet of landfill gas a year. This volume is enough to reduce gasoline use by 121 million gallons annually – the equivalent of 220,000 light-duty cars being removed from the road! An analysis by Argonne National Laboratory reports that there are currently 6,000 inactive landfills that could be tapped. The technology has already achieved success abroad, as more than half of Sweden's 11,500 natural gas vehicles run on biogas. Read more from the DOE's Blog
