Investigation of methane emission potential for municipal solid waste landfill sites in Iran and declining approaches 2008

Objective: The objective of this study was to investigation of methane emission potential for municipal solid waste landfill sites in Iran and declining approaches. Methods: In this study methane emission rate from MSW landfill sites in Iran was estimated by IPCC (2000) method. Also emitted methane amounts from three different scenarios of MSW land filling and recycling have been surveyed in Iran. Results: The results showed that methane emission rate from unsanitary MSW landfill site in existence situation of (first scenario) was 1.682 million ton per year which would be equal with 162.7 kilo gram of methane per ton of buried MSW. In this scenario, methane emission portion from MSW landfill sites on Iran in comparison to global rate was 4.67 percent. Conclusion: Based on the results, in first scenario if MSW land fill sites became sanitized and methane recovery from these sites carried out (second scenario) methane emission would be reduced to rate of 0.7 million ton per year. Also appropriate recycling of MSW in Iran up to 80 percent and land filling of residual solid waste with recovering of generated methane (third scenario) was reduced methane emission to rate of 0.158 million ton per year. So, it has been recommended intensively that sanitary land filling processes and appropriate MSW recycling would be considered as two significantly important actions for methane emission decreasing on Iran MSW landfill sites