Yard Debris in Landfills? What a Waste

Florida recently repealed its ban on yard waste going to landfills. Michigan and Georgia are in the process of passing legislation to do the same. There are rumblings in Missouri to allow yard waste back in landfills.

The basic reasoning is the yard waste helps produce methane, the landfill gas generated as trash decomposes. Methane can then be converted to energy and sold to power companies. Eco-Audrey thinks adding yard waste to produce more methane is a bad idea.

Here are some facts about methane:

• Methane becomes explosive at a concentration of 4.4%.
• Methane is also a greenhouse gas that is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

Eco-Audrey is all for converting landfill gas into electricity. Existing methane should be re-utilized and transformed into supplemental electricity. You want to use what is already being produced naturally, fine, but but don't create more that what is already there.

Why mess with a great idea? The yard waste ban in Missouri has been successful in saving landfill space and turning yard waste into compost. Though Eco-Audrey is no soil expert, my gardening friends tell this stuff is black gold. We should be concentrating on how to conserve air space in landfills, not needlessly adding materials to fill them up faster.

Eco-Audrey is all for finding alternative sources for electricity, but not by adding more waste to landfills, and that is my 2 cents.

Eco-Audrey is the fictional face of St. Louis County's Recycling  Becomes Me campaign. Although Audrey is not real, the writer from St. Louis County most certainly is.