Methane emissions from landfills in Serbia and potential mitigation strategies: a case study

Abstract

Open dumping and landfilling have represented the predominant method of waste management in Serbia during the past decades. This practice resulted in over 3600 waste disposal sites distributed all over the country. The locations of the sites and their characteristics have been determined in the framework of the presented study. The vast majority of disposal sites (up to 3300) are characterized by small deposition depth of waste and total waste volumes of less than 10,000 m3. Only about 50 landfills in Serbia contain more than 100,000 m3 of waste. These large landfills are responsible for more than 95% of the total CH4 emissions from waste disposal, which was assessed as 60,000 tons of CH4 in 2010. The evaluation of different measures [soil cover, compost cover and landfill gas (LFG) systems] for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from Serbian landfills indicated that enhanced microbial CH4 oxidation (using a compost cover), as well as the installation of LFG systems, could generate net revenues as saved CH4 emissions are creditable for the European Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme. In total between 4 and 7 million tons of CO2 equivalent emissions could be avoided within the next 20 years by mitigating CH4 emissions from Serbian landfills.